This is a Nightmare!!

OK - I am still tutoring/coaching Monday through Thursday from 2:30 in the afternoon until around 8. This schedule works for me, and I have some great students right now. A**** my 3rd grader, had to do his first science fair project this year. GREAT!! Somehow this comes under coaching. Mom presents me with a wad of money, and after the Arabic has been translated - I understand that I am to come up with a project, buy all of the supplies needed, and get busy. After 30 + years of teaching in a school - I am just a little over science fair projects. A*** was so excited - all he wanted to do was to build a volcano and explode it. After a couple of hours of explaining and pleading with him - he realized (sort of) that this was not a true project with a hypothesis, etc. Now enters the book - Science Fair Projects for Dummies. I was able to talk him into what looked like a simple project to me - making electricity from citrus fruits. "Look A*** - the world needs energy, everyone is talking green - we can come up with an alternative energy source that will work. We can do this!!" I was over the top with enthusiasm just hoping that it would catch on. It did. We spent several afternoons together, and then almost...an entire weekend!! At one point, I had to call in the engineer husband to help us run the final test with the voltmeter from our garage. Wow - hooked up the copper wire to the slits in the grapefruit that had to have copper pennies to hold the wire in place, and FINALLY the needle moved!! After the screaming and jumping around subsided, we repeated our project for dummies. OK - same results, we are really onto something here!! Why hasn't the White House or Al Gore picked up on this phenomena!! This could be the answer to the recession that has taken hold of the SunShine State!! Alright - on to the rest of the story - everything is mounted semi-neatly on the project backboard (photos, conclusions, theory, etc) A*** leaves here with his fruit, wires and voltmeter and backboard. So very impressed with himself - not to mention Mr. Bishop, Kelly and me. I am just thankful that A*** has a project to turn in, and one - that after hours of practice - that he can actually explain to his class. Fast forward two weeks later...phone call from A***'s mom. She is screaming Arabic into the phone and I really have no idea what she is saying. Later that afternoon - I find out that A*** WON the science fair!!! Oh, please - this is a fair for grades 3-8 - how can this be???? Now, "WE" are moving on to the next level of competition!!!!! Is there anyone else out there who sees this as a nightmare!!!

Channel Markers

Channel Markers - channel markers are navigation signals on federal waters to aid in safe waterway navigation....I love the water. I love being on the water in the boat. I
love the memories of spending all of our spare time on the water when the girls
were young. I have been missing the water and have been thinking about all of those days of the best times ever. Thinking about that - my ADD mind wanders
to the evenings that David and I, along with our Kindred Spirits, took the Boating Safety Class. The fun of that was the seriousness with which the guys approached the class - and how the ladies would slip out to take a bathroom break and head to the mall. AND we still passed the final exam!! Back to channel markers...just like the markers that guide us safely through the waters on our boat trips, there are channel markers that God gives us along our journey in life that guide us, direct our way, and keep us in the safe waters until we complete our travels. So I began thinking about the markers and just where in my life the markers have shown up. Channel marker - being born into a Christian home - having two Godly parents. This set me on a path that would forever shape my life. Channel Marker - my Daddy dying unexpectedly and at such a young age. I was only 14. I know that this changed my life forever. Channel Marker - Decisions about where I would go to college. Two transfers, and I was where I needed to be. This decision would change my life and career plans - one semester of volunteering with autistic children and I knew what I was called to do. This one decision to go to school in Charleston would be the most important channel marker of all. It was at tfhis time that God brought David into my life - and there he remains 30 something years later. I heard someone say today that long marriages are "well-seasoned". Ours definitely is. Channel Marker - Our wedding day. Channel Marker - Decision to move from Ohio early in our marriage to south Florida. God brought us closer to family, and brought Sam and Mart into our lives. Channel Marker - pregnancy, and the birth of Kaiti. This marker would redirect us and totally change our lives. The three of us journeyed along from south Florida to Merritt Island to Tampa and there we found another Channel Marker - a move to Charleston. God brought us back to the LowCountry where we had gone to school, where we found our Kindred Spirits, where we found a church home and family, where Kelly was born, and where we bumped right into a huge Channel Marker - Walk to Emmaus. This weekend was spiritually life-changing for both of us in our faith journey and our relationship with Christ. Channel Marker - Susan, Kindred Spirit...diagnosed with cancer and taken from us - so young, too young. A lesson in faith, prayer, and how to do whatever it takes to just get through. Lessons for a lifetime. Lessons that were so difficult and painful to learn - but lessons that shaped all of our lives. Channel Marker - Hurricane Hugo - loss and survival. Channel Marker - David's Dad's death - this marker changed our family once again in a forever kind of way. Channel Marker - guiding us to leave Charleston and head back to Florida. Being guided to make this move only by God and as a total move of faith. Little did we know that we were moving here so that we would be in a place to care for David's mom. This move was like being in the boat at night, when the water is dark and black. The only way to navigate is by the lights on the channel markers. You have studied the book, you know what the lights mean - and you navigate by faith through the dark water. And here we are looking out for more channel markers in our lives right now. Waiting for God to put the markers around the curve so that we know which direction we are supposed to take.

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.Isaiah 42:15-17

Kenya Team Update

We just spoke with my nephew. He made it safely to from Nairobi to Charlotte. He is in the car on his way home. He said that the team knew that God with with them and protecting him, while they could see the violence around them. Thank you each for your prayers that brought them safely out of Kenya and home.

Pray for Mission Team in Kenya

I just received this note from my nephew via my sister. Chris and the mission team from Charlotte have been taken to a safe house/convent outside of Nairobi.

Hey Mom,We're still at the convent. Its about 6:45 at night here. We're leaving here at 6:30 tomorrow morning and my flight leaves Nairobi at 9:15. See you Saturday.Love,Chris

Please pray for their safety as they travel to the Nairobi airport and home to Charlotte. They will begin traveling 6:30 Nairobi time which will be 10:30 this evening. PRAY FOR SAFETY!!

Pray for Kenya

Please pray for the people of Kenya during this time of violence and political unrest. Hundreds of innocent men, women and children have been killed in the past few days. My nephew, on break from law school, has traveled to the slums of Nairobi on a mission trip. His group has been moved from the slums to a safe house just outside of Nairobi. Please pray that they are able to get to the airport on Friday. As of now, the roads are closed. Pray that they will be able to fly out of Kenya on Friday and arrive home safely on Saturday.

and it's another New Year

So here we are - today is the first day of 2008. My prayer is that this year is a year of health for my loved ones. And YES!! I did eat my hoppin' john and collard greens just to make sure that this is the very best of years. This is a year of becoming grandparents. For David and me, this is a year to begin moving from success to significance. Read the book - Halftime by Bob Buford. http://www.halftime.org/ We are becoming more and more involved in WaterMissions International - http://www.watermissions.org/ I really do see this as the realization of a lifelong passion for David. It's time to clean out and simplify our lives physically and emotionally. It is time to move from two storage units of STUFF to just one. It is time to put down the treadmill and use it twice each day. It's time to give up some sugar - well, maybe not, it's the sweet tea that really poses a problem there. It's time to get serious -I mean real serious about my quiet time. Why, why do I have such difficulty doing this - I know that I need to, I know that if I restructured my day I could do this - but then I have so many interruptions or life happenings that are unplanned and jump right in the way. So this year - once again, I am aspiring to spend more quiet time with my God, more time working on becoming a woman of God - trying to lose the amount of time that Towanda seems to come and inhabit my being. It's time to get face down and pray, really pray for the safety of my son-in-law as he prepares to head to Iraq for seven months - flying a plane that only a few guys know how to pilot. It's time to have faith in God that He will hold Kaiti and Collin close and protect them while Robert is away. It is time to slowly untie the cords that hold Kelly close - they were completely undone before, and letting go a second time is so much harder. This year I am going to reread The Little Prince once again... Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
This will be a new year of more faith, a growing faith, celebrations, worship, study, old friends, new friends, new life, prayers for healing, more travel - more important travel, longer work hours, more productive work hours, more time for family near and far, continuing our Monday night ladies group, enjoying more time with the Steel Magnolia, probably another remodeling project - yes, I have lost my mind!! And now - send in some good ideas for what our baby Collin should call me...I am having a tough time with that one. Anything that I like - no one else likes. And in the meantime....

But the land...is a land...which the Lord they God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. Deuteronomy 11:11-12