Colossians 4:2

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

I am thankful for any interest shown in this blog.  I want to be watchful in that I am "up front" about what will be shared.  Therefore, I will reassess my niche in this world of blogging.

What special something do I have to share?

I was born in 1953 without ear canals or ear drums.  At the age of 60, I am the happy owner of bone anchored hearing aids.  I am hearing better than I have heard in my life.  Every morning is like Christmas morning as I look forward to hearing things I missed before.

I was born in Alexandria Virginia into a family of origin that included the trials and tribulations of a father with bipolar disorder.  My father sexually molested me.  My mother died at age 38 from cancer.  I was sent to live with her parents on a diary farm in Minnesota shortly thereafter.  My grandfather died from cancer a few years after my arrival.  I had a bit of an Anne of Green Gables upbringing as I competed with milk cows for my hardworking grandmother's attention.

I have generalized anxiety disorder, which is managed by Paxil and prayer.  I love to go on "walk abouts" with my camera.  I am very interested in geocaching.  I am a voracious reader of biographies and autobiographies.  I believe in the goodness of God.  I have a ragdoll cat that I love with abandon.  His name is Beamer because he often "beams in" out of nowhere.

The marriage I share with my husband of few (very few!) words has been a challenge to us both.  We have two brilliant children.  Our daughter lives far, far away in Germany.  We daily learn from our son, who has Asperger's Syndrome. 

During our marriage, we have lived in Australia, Guatemala, and Bolivia.  We were in Bolivia, South America, working with Habitat for Humanity International.  We had the privilege of helping 100 families build 100 homes.  We travel annually to Guatemala with a medical missions team.

God willing, I hope to blog my memoirs and day to day treasures.  Forthwith, here is some random loveliness encountered on today's urban walk-about, my son and my cat!

Matthew 22:37

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

Just returned from a six day visit with my best friend forever in Duluth.  Let me say it is ever so easy to love the LORD my God when I am with my friend.  We both enjoy talking about how good He is.  She is celebrating each day of being cured of Hepatitis C.  I am celebrating my new life of hearing with ease.

We rented a quad bike near Lake Superior, with her daughter.  The three of us went down gradual slopes and back up, muscling along and doing the work of four.  Her darling hubby came home from work the first day bearing wine and beer.  Such a sweetie.  Later on, we indulged in our ritual of eating smoked fish, cheese, crackers and fruit in her car, facing a fantastic view of the lake called Superior.  My friend has a hobby of photography and a snazzy new camera.  We committed our memories of Gooseberry Falls to film.  Including a sweet pair of newlyweds.  She in white and he in uniform.  It was classic.

We did devotions.  We walked my friend's dogs.  We talked.  We laughed.  We cried.  We watched the "Joy Luck Club," "A Beautiful Mind," and "Shadow Recruit."  She spoiled me rotten with her cooking and the use of their downstairs apartment.  It was a lovely, lovely time.  A taste of heaven, I am sure.

God has a way of sending the right book my way.  I am presently reading The Map of Enough, One Woman's Search for Place, by Molly Caro May.  She is a philosophical young woman who sees herself as a nomad.  This mindset began with her family of origin, with whom she frequently transferred from country to country.  Her outlook remains the same as she travels through life.  The main event her nonfiction book covers is the time she and her fiance built a yurt on her parent's Montana property.  There is also a pre-existing cabin on the property with heat, water and electricity.  The couple split their time between the yurt at night and the cabin during the day.  The author savored the free time, once the yurt was built.  But for her fiance, time "would open like a black hole beneath him every few days."  I can identify with the fiance.  And yet when she writes "I liked not having to respond to anything or anyone."  I say "Amen sistah!"

Thank you LORD for this glorious, free summertime!  Amen.

Isaiah 30:15

"In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength"

The devotional book Jesus Calling by Sarah Young continues to surprise and amaze me.  I am a week and a half into the "O LORD, now what" funk that usually falls upon me after Guatemala.  How I love speaking Spanish and connecting people.  During the trip I had the anticipation of perhaps coming to the rescue part time, with a hospice social work job in Williston, upon my return.  How I love coming to the rescue!  Turns out, they found someone who will work full time.  Therefore, a double dose of, "O LORD!"

Add to that a healthy dose of Midwestern work ethic and I do feel a bit sheepish lolly gagging about the house until school starts on September 2nd.  So I'm told in today's devotion, "Chill, my dear."  I also had a heart to heart talk with God yesterday.  I poured out my longing to do what I love to do, and acknowledged that I must appear quite the ungrateful brat for all I already have.  I seemed to hear Him say He heard me, He loves me and He does not judge me.  Thank you God!

So let's have a blast from the past from my journal of 1990 as we learn where we may go with Habitat for Humanity:

06-18-90

Good Morning Abba!  Good, leisurely, orderly, loverly start today.  Muggy.  Cool. Birds singin'.

Talked to my grandma El and by best friend.  It's good to know they are still there!  In the Other Land.  This Land will end.  Oh, so quickly.

I hope the birds sing where we go.

God has been so faithful to us.  We are healthy and happy.  We love our temporary Habitat home.  It would be fun to show some family/friends around.

Mark likes s-l-o-w starts in the morning.  Bethany is heigh-ho let's go!

Today we talked about sin during training.  Cross cultural sin.  Read an interesting blurb.  The "yardstick" is "love one another and love God."

The heat and mugginess is draining.  The kids keep playing and laughing and smiling, though!  Maybe the air is cooler down there!

06-19-14

Well.  Yesterday Reality Struck.  Right between the eyes.  Our Habitat for Humanity project proposal says "Bolivia."  OK.  That's cool.  Literally.  Usual highs in the low sixties.  Lows usually below freezing.  No malaria.  I looked further at the proposal.  No sewage.  No latrines.  SQUATTER SETTLEMENT!!! 

I thought once again about sacrificial living.  Making a sacrifice for God.  Loving His people in need.  We would indeed build relationships by living in a squatter settlement, if nothing else.  Is that what You want O LORD?

Hey, it sounded holy, but we've got two little kids for crying out loud!!!

I raved.  I ranted.  I was mad.  At God.  Like, get with the program LORD!

It's OK to be mad at God.  He can take it.

We called our Pastor back in Minnesota, just returned from Guatemala.  We shared.  They commiserated.  We have their prayers.

Our prayers.

I let go.  I feel better.

Dear Abba,

Your will be done.  I lay the "where will we go" in Your lap.  Where I should have left it in the first place.  I trust You to place us carefully, healthfully, happyfully, safefully, purposefully.  Amen.

Psalm 25:5 Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long

 Psalm 25:5

“Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long.”

Okay LORD.  Now what?

I’ve just returned from a medical mission trip to Guatemala.  My husband and I have been going yearly for the last seven years.  The team includes medical providers, a pharmacy, a dental team, nurses, van drivers, and interpreters.  The medical team, with all the supplies, fits into four vans.  We stay at a church hostel in the city of Quetzaltenango and drive to five outlying villages during the week of our mission.

The villages we visit have been selected by a pastor/doctor in Quetzaltenango who is in contact with our mission director.  When we arrive at the village, we often times set up our mobile clinic in an available school.  In Guatemala, the schoolrooms are usually arranged around an open courtyard.

During the clinics, the people we serve go to various classrooms where they will find:  the Registration Station, the Intake Station, Medical Providers, the Pharmacy, Nursing and then Dental.  It can be challenging to channel hundreds of local people to their needed stations and difficult for the stations to coordinate services.

If there are people with medical issues that cannot be aided by our team, they are referred to a specialist.  The pastor/doctor from Quetzaltenango sets up the appointment with the specialist and arranges any transportation needed by the patient.  This is all free of charge.

I am an interpreter.  I love speaking Spanish, interacting with the local people and helping the team and the patients to connect.  I have worked with the nurses, with the medical providers and even in crowd control.

This year, in each of the five villages we visited, we did not need to set up the clinic in separate classrooms.  In each case, we were given the use of a large auditorium-like room.  There was much less confusion for the people we served because they could see their next station, be it Medical Providers, Nurses or Pharmacy.  It was much easier for the stations to communicate with each other, also.

While surveying the action in the busy auditoriums, it struck me how the team was working together as one.  We weren’t puzzled, exasperated, uninformed stations struggling on our own.  Nursing or Pharmacy.  Medical Provider or Registration.  We were one.  It was a short mental leap for me to go on.  Patient or Doctor.  Guatemalan or North American.  Old or young.  “Happy my blood sugar level is good” or “I need a referral for the lump in my breast.”  We are all one.  All dependent on the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life.  And I could clearly see God is good.

Now, back in the U.S.A., I admit I feel a bit aimless.  However, I wait upon Him, the Three in One, for my next adventure. 

I am one of the bloggers for the Joy International blog!  That blog site can be found at http://www.joyintl.org/web/columnid/6412/articles.asp

Psalm 118:24

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad!

I haven't heard back recently from the folks who interviewed me for the social work job in Williston.  They did contact me once to say they had received my online application.  One of my references told me they had called.  What he told them will be tough to "make so."  He said I walk on water!!!  Hoo Ha the kind people in my life!  I know I trust the LORD for what comes of the interview.  I also know I don't wait very well.  Dear LORD give me patience.  Right now.

I indulged in my passion for geocaching the other day.  I found the two caches I sought in the wilds near the Missouri River.  Who a thought there would be so many burrs along a river???  My brand new tankini will never be the same.  I suppose I can work those pulled threads back in, if I really try.  Finding the caches was a blast.  The treasure of that day was being nearby when a pair of Canadian geese and their two half-grown babies slipped into the river.  That's living!

Today I broke down and began washing clothes in preparation for our annual trip to Guatemala with the medical team sponsored by the Episcopal Church from Fargo.  This will be my hubby's seventh trip and my fourth.  I was a no-show one year when I fell with my motorcycle and broke my back.  That's another story.  Then a couple of times I stayed home because I did not feel needed.

The team this year consists of 22 people acting in the roles of medical providers, nurses, pharmacology students, dental students and interpreters.  We are a clinic on wheels; namely two vans.  We are based in Xela, Guatemala and travel to five surrounding villages to provide medical care, medicine, vitamins, physical therapy, dental care and fluoride treatments.  In past years we have served approximately 2000 people with medical needs.

This will be my final post until I get back.  I will keep a diary and share what develops.  I will be acting as an interpreter and may help with crowd control.  Whoop whoop!

Let's return to Habitat for Humanity training, 06-13-90

Oh I like strolling to devotions, chatting and drinking coffee!  I love it!

C.S. is so supportive and interesting and full of life.  She says the Honduras have 30 Habitat for Humanity projects.  It appears that Bolivia is beautiful and pristine, the people work hard, and it is not urban like we think of urban.

I'm attracted to Bolivia having no malaria.  Really. We could cope with the cold. 60 - 30 degrees F.  Really.

I'm intrigued.

I love the people in my class.

06-15-90

Totally aggravated.  Despite my early morning mothering efforts, the kids were not merry and gay when I left for devotions.

They just don't like to see me go?  They are sick of the whole routine?  I'm making it worse than it is?

I'm looking forward to being truly settled Somewhere.  Our little family with people coming and going and getting to know the locals and maybe even building a house.  Or two.

I could be wrong, but other people in the class look a little peeved too.

Proverbs 17:22

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones.

Thank you to everyone for your encouragement with this blog!  It is a labor of love with over-long acrylic nails, let me tell you!  I will get them shortened shortly!

Since dipping my toes in the waters of blog-land, I have decided to add to this blog once a week.  Or more.  Depending upon this wonderful luxury called "a summer off."  Goodness gracious, the last time I was a teacher's aide with the summer off, I had young'uns at home!  Now I have an independent author-in-the-works at home and a hubby that knows he may have to reheat something from the 'fridge for supper. I can do whatever I want!!

So far I have wanted to travel, apply for a job using my social work degree,  go for walks, play Spider Solitaire (I need to earn that third and final star, dangit), and clean up my backyard.  I have amazed myself with how my yard went from a weedy, shaggy, nobody-with-sense-lives-here wilderness to a place of joy.  A little bit of weed pulling here, a little making friendly with the trimmers there and VOILA!

I have discovered something that is totally not rocket science.  Prepare yourself.  It takes time to take time.  White knuckle stuff, ain't it?  For many, many years now I have grabbed a little time to clean house, or to wash dishes, or to shop, or to spoil myself rotten (and feel mighty daring!) and then get back to business with paid employment.  This summer I have enough time for and, and, and instead of or, or, or.  Man o man, this is living!

Today's treasures are the wildflowers I saw on my walk today and the ridiculously gorgeous flowers in my yard.  Let's see, how to attach photos...

I know, I know.  God had fun making flowers, didn't He?  And animals.  I mean, a giraffe?  He was in a goofy mood that day.  And according to hearsay, the day He made me.  Mr. Giraffe, you and I are One and The Same.  I think I'll buy one of those elegant, interior decorator-type giraffe statuettes for my house.  At a garage sale.  Or Pier 1.  Today.

Let's round off today with a blast from the past at Habitat for Humanity in Georgia, 06-10-90:

Abba,

Thank you for sending Your Son so that I might have life and have it more abundantly!

I have had the most wonderful affirmations and made such great self discoveries these past few days.

I took out a nail with no head on it.  I clawed it out sideways with the hammer.  I wouldn't have known I could do it if I hadn't tried!

We did some group things already.  Tower Building.  I can be an organizer.  An artist.  The labels are a bigger obstacle to overcome than the doing!

I tried and so I did!  I've found out skills I have because I tried doing.  My skills?  I'm good with a hammer.  I can organize.  I can draw.  I can encourage.  Thank you LORD! Amen.

Luke 1:79

...to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.


Did I mention that my friend of Missouri appendectomy fame is a little fireball?  She had her appendectomy Thursday AM, and we returned to Bismarck the following Saturday.  She allowed herself two, count 'em, two whole days off from work; therefore she was back to work on Wednesday.  She proposed we go out to lunch on Thursday.  Sounded like a great idea to me! 
We could reminisce about Missouri and maybe plan our next motorcycle ride.  Oh yes, she has a motorcycle!

Anyway, I picked her up and we were off to The Pizza Ranch.  Then she says, "What is your health background as a social worker?"  I stated I had more of a health background as a lapsed EMT than as a social worker.  She informed me she had heard that a hospice organization in Williston was in need of a social worker with a Masters degree and wouldn't that be a fun summer adventure for me since I had the summer off as an Instructional Aide?

Four years ago was the last time I was in Williston.  I was pursuing my hobby of finding geocaches.  A geocache is a container that has been hidden, without being buried.  Each container has a website with its GPS coordinates and a description of the container, as well as a record of who placed the geocache and who has found it.  Also, there is a logbook in each geocache for recording your name and the date of your find.  If you wish, you can leave a little memento and take a little memento.  Then you put the geocache back where you found it.  Geocaching is a blast!  Different challenges come up for geocaching.  The one that brought me to Williston was a challenge from North Dakota State Parks.  There are twelve parks and each one had a hidden geocache within its vicinity.  Finding the geocache is a challenge in itself, but the first five people to find the twelve State Park geocaches would win two nights of free camping in the State Park of their choice. So, I had found the other eleven geocaches and the one in Williston was the last one to find.

I had found #11 in Bottineau, in the afternoon, and figured, well I can go south and go home or I can go west and then south to find that last geocache and then east to home.  So, greedy to be one of the first five to find all twelve, thus I did.  It was nighttime when I reached the Lewis and Clark State Park in Williston.  FYI, there are no outdoor lights in a State Park.  In spite of the fact I could not see my hand in front of my face, I gamely took by GPS (lighted) and soon found myself scrambling up a steep hill, through thorns and bushes.  In the dark.  Even I realized the absurdity of possibly tumbling head over hills down a steep, rocky hill all alone.  In the dark dark dark.  Sense finally dawned and I decided to return to my car and try to find this last cache in the morning.  Another thing that motivated me to abandon the search was I had left my headlights on, so I could find the car!  The thought of dilly dallying too long and returning to a flat battery did not appeal.

I had not been in my car long when there was a rapping at my driver side window.  In the dark.  Turns out it was the Park Ranger.  He really wondered what the heck I was doing there.  In the dark.  I explained I was geocaching and he wished me well.  I started to get cold and thought I would try my luck finding a hotel room.  Silly girl.  I knew better with the oil boom craziness going on, but hope springs eternal.  I was dead beat tired, and found myself going the wrong way on a one way road near Tioga (I thought it was a two way in my numbed state) and nearly got smeared by a huge oil tanker.  I realized I needed to get off the road.  I felt like I was in Hell with the various flaming oil wells in the night and the menacing trucks owning the highways.  I pulled up near an oil well, and caught a few winks.

A few winks was all I got because I was worried the oil well people would come and shoo me off.  Around 2:00 AM, I decided to return to the State Park and sleep off the rest of the night in peace.  In the morning I got my GPS and discovered two things.  First, there was a perfectly civilized path wending about the hill; no need go bushwacking straight up the mini-mountain!!!  Two, the geocache was not at the exact coordinates.  A bright little something caught my eye, off in the distance from where the cache was supposed to be, a good 10 - 15 feet off, and there it was.  I was one happy geocacher!

I called my boss to say I wouldn't be in (and yes I told her why!)  Then I treated myself to breakfast on the way home and spent the rest of the day worn out.

So that was my most recent memory of Williston, going through my head when my fireball friend suggested a summer escapade.  Torn up, truck congested, dusty roads, greed gone wild, and flames in the night.  With no place to lay your weary head.  I said, "Sure!  Sounds interesting!"

I called the phone number she gave me.  The lady perked right up when I said I had a Masters in Social Work and had done an internship at St. Alexius Hospice.  The following Tuesday (two days ago) found me tootling to Williston for a 1:00 PM interview.  I was ready for the wild, wild West.  The trip there was beautiful, with rolling hills alternating with valley vistas.  I went through Minot, as had been suggested, and the traffic was not bad.  I have a feeling the really crazy traffic goes through the alternate Watford City route.  I never at any time felt like I would be squashed like a bug by a big bad truck.  It helped that I was driving my sturdy, dinged up, I feel brave, '99 Toyota Sienna van.  Last time I was driving my itty bitty, please don't hurt me, purple Porsche Boxster convertible.

I have a habit of cutting it close time wise.  My first mistake was thinking Williston was in Mountain time, not Central time.  I lost an hour wiggle room there.  I rebounded from that assumption and then ran into road construction and detours the closer I got to my destination.  The kind people at the organization guided me to their office via cellphone.  They were completely understanding when I arrived at 1:27 PM.  Whew!

We proceeded with the interview.   I proposed I would need a place to stay, my mileage paid and I could work Mon - Wed or Tues - Thurs.  I said I'd like to help them, if I could.  They were oh so happy I am "Masters prepared."  I was all ready to excite them with my internship at St. Alexius.  I was taken totally by surprised when they became enthused about the year I worked for Visiting Angels as a homecare provider.  It turns out, that was another one of the requirements for the position, since they work with a vulnerable population.  Lord, You are full of surprises!

The interview was soon over.  They gave me a website address to fill out the online application and do an assessment.  They said they would get back to me and sent me on my merry way.  Lovely, lovely ladies.

The drive home was as beautiful as the ride out, minus the anxiety of the interview.  God is very good to me and mine and I pray His will be done!  Amen.