It's the end of the world as we know it...

When I first came to training for our new job, I didn’t really know who I was in relation to our new position. I had a vague idea of what I liked to do and what my abilities were but I had no idea how to use them. Over the last few weeks, I feel that I have been shown where I should focus my efforts. Namely, writing. Writing what? I didn’t know.

Then came a mini-crisis in our job and I felt unimportant, overlooked and forgotten. I felt that I was being asked “could I be happy with just doing small things forever?"

I honestly couldn’t answer. I really didn’t think I could be happy.

“But Lord,” I questioned. “I want to do great things. Why would you give me abilities and focus my efforts then ask me to not only just be faithful to do little things (like journal each day and spend time in the word) but actually tell me and put me in a position that I can ONLY do small things.”

Once again, I heard an answer that I have not been called to happiness but rather to faithfulness and obedience. Then, a revelation hit me. In the Book it talks about steady plodding brings prosperity. This means that it is the little steps you take each day and the faithfulness to be obedient in the menial tasks that ultimately leads to prosperity- the great things.

You don’t just do big things, it’s all the small things added together. The big picture can be broken down into thousands of little dots that represent all the small things we do out of faithfulness and obedience. I am doing great things already!!

Miscellaneous

I've been trying to keep our blog updated at least once per week. I didn't really have anything cool happen this week that is noteworthy so I thought I would just give you all a few random thoughts:

Thought 1: Happy Father's Day to our dads.

Thought 2: We can't wait to get overseas. Our country has tons of gorgeous beaches and lots of fun places to visit. It's going to be awesome. Hope you will come and visit.

Thought 3: We heard an amazing speaker this week. It was so good, I can't even explain other than to say "wish you could have heard him as well."

Thought 4: After a futile search at the mall for more summer clothing appropriate to our new country, I realized that Target has great clothes. I recommend it.

Thought 5: We had our final shot clinic and none of us got sick. Yeah!!

Thought 6: We only have two weeks left for training and then we will be back in Tulsa for a few days before we leave. We hope to see you all before we leave.

I guess that's all. We just have a few requests that we would ask you remember during your quiet times:
a. Transportation while we are in Tulsa and to travel back and forth from OKC.
b. Wisdom in packing to maximize space and minimize excess.
c. Discernment in our job overseas.
d. Emotional, physical and spiritual health during transition time.

I missed my house today.

I knew it would happen eventually. There would come a point where I would have time to think, take a deep breath and reflect on all that has happened the last few months and then speculate on what is to come with moving to a land far, far away. That time happened and now I miss my house.

It's really the first time that the loss of all our earthly possessions has really affected me negatively. Up to this point, it has been such a freeing experience. But, alas, I knew it would happen and I miss my house.

It's not that where we are at now is bad. In fact we have great living conditions (the food could use a little help but some would say that I'm too picky). And I'm not concerned about where we are going. There are days that I feel kind of sick to my stomach because of the uncertainty of not knowing the language, etc. Overall, I know this is where we should go and I'm excited about it. But, I still miss my house.

The best way to explain it is like this: You just broke up with your boyfriend. You don't really miss the guy as in the person but rather you miss what could have been. All that stuff you build up in your mind about this guy being the "one", yadda, yadda, yadda. The house itself wasn't anything spectacular. Just your typical suburban home. I just didn't have any plans to leave it like EVER. And in reality it was the lifestyle that I miss more than anything.

I'm also really bad about connecting items to my memories. I think that somehow if I get rid of the item then the memory goes with it as well. For example, if I get rid of a picture frame that held a photo of my college graduation, somehow the memory of my college graduation is gone with the frame. Make sense? Maybe just to me.

Anyways, I said all that just so that you understand that I missed my house today.

Great Day

Yesterday was a day of serious fun. I began my "official" race season training by running a 5K (3.1 miles) in the morning. I finished next to last but almost everyone else running was younger and without children. I'm just glad I finished considering I have not been running consistently since I was about 5 months prego. Anyways, it took me 37 minutes and gives me a great starting point for running the Bangkok half marathon in November!! Jeff and Chloe also ran the race and Chloe loved it. I'm not sure how much Jeff enjoyed pushing the stroller the entire 3 miles but he finished ahead of me so it must not have been too bad. I told him next time I would push- maybe.

Anyways, that may have only been fun for me. The real fun came later. A big group of us went to a theme park called King's Dominion. It is similar to Six Flags but with more water rides and possibly more roller coasters. It was great. It was very warm in the morning and early afternoon so we decided to all go to the water park for a few hours. Aside from all the water slides and raft rides, etc. there was a tide pool that simluates tidal waves that Chloe could get in. Here are some pics...

When Chloe began to look like this, we decided to head for water:



At first, she wasn't so sure about the waves, but soon...

She loved them!!!

What a great day.