Where Is Your Treasure?

"Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."--Luke 12:33-34

I often tell myself how unconnected I am to my stuff.  I ENJOY it--not LOVE it.  
I used to think how I would not be like the rich young ruler that came to see Jesus--saddened about giving up what I have worked so hard for.  Nope.  That's clearly not me.
Well guess what?
I am the biggest liar that I know!
Really.

I can give excess away to the poor and needy, but what about really nice things that are, let's face it, just too nice for them?!

I am embarrassing myself, but I absolutely REFUSE to go down like the rich young ruler's last documented encounter in Scripture.

I can weave tales of how I shouldn't give things away that my family can use because it's not being a good steward--and there is a balance of that--but what I am concerned about here is this greedy heart of mine that needs to stop being sad about giving up THINGS.  And P.S.--I can ALWAYS go to various stores and get more here in the United States.

At Lighthouse Church in Harrisburg, we have this HUGE opportunity to give to the dear churches of Freetown, Sierra Leone in a very tangible way.  We have a 50-some foot trailer parked on our property that we are collaborating together with our communities to fill for these people who can't comprehend an "All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet."  Nor can they imagine medicine to treat daily ailments such as cough drops, Chapstick, and Asprin.  These are our neighbors, defined as such by Jesus.  Our neighbors, who clapped when they heard that Pastor and Donna lived to be over 40 years old.  That should tell you something about their standards of living.

I don't have collections or furs and jewelry.  What I DO have are "treasures" that I have worked hard to gather, collect, get a good deal on, and store.  Good deals on nice kid's clothing and shoes.  Great finds at thrift stores on expensive books and almost new toys.  

Please, don't hear me wrong here:  things are neutral in and of themselves.  It's the connection that I have placed on them lately that is evil.  I don't want to love these things more than I love my neighbors in Sierra Leone.  If I can see my connection to things, I imagine that *gasp* my kids can see it too.  And guess what?  They will probably get part of their moral compass from me, their parent.

It's my job to let them see how much they are given by God and that it IS their job to give in accordance with that.
First, I must do this myself, or I am a religious hypocrite.

"Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly. And give according to what you have, not what you don’t have.  Of course, I don’t mean your giving should make life easy for others and hard for yourselves. I only mean that there should be some equality.  Right now you have plenty and can help those who are in need. Later, they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it. In this way, things will be equal.  As the Scriptures say,

'Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over,

    and those who gathered only a little had enough.”

--2 Corinthians 8:12-15

Donations are still being accepted for fellow believers in Sierra Leone.  Do not miss your opportunity to store treasures in heaven.

Visit http://lighthousehbg.com/ for more details.

REDO

Today, at LBC, we honored a teacher who has taught tirelessly for close to 25 years now.  She has taught the Junior Church kiddos, ages 7-12ish for TWENTY FIVE YEARS!!!  I haven't really done anything for 25 years--except try not to gain too much weight, of which I haven't quite succeeded at all. :)

Throughout the past 4-5 months, my team (Donna, Pastor, Tim, John, Teresa, Lydia, Grant, Butch, and Ms. Peggy) at the church have been on a mission of sorts to redo the 25 year old Junior Church room.
Simple enough, right?!
My sister-in-law informed me that a certain super-humongous-mega church had skilled folks from Disney come in and design their children's place.  
Okay.  That's definitely NOT in the budget.
Alright.  What do we have to work with?

We have rose colored partitions and casino-style carpeting.  Check.  Not to mention an old communion table that somehow made it's way into Ms. Peggy's room along with some mature-floral fabrics here and there.  And by the way-- why, WHY, pray tell, are many church buildings decorated with feminine, floral things?!  There is also a wobbly old, tiny pulpit.

I began researching what other Junior Church rooms looked like, and I simply couldn't find anything.  I was struck with the fact that there isn't this plethora of pictures and ideas out there for children's classrooms in church buildings that I thought there would/should be in this day and age.  Also, I could just be lame-o at searching with the correct buzz words.:)

I wanted to post some pics of decoration ideas that we have been able to do with our church building because I couldn't find too many, and I really like aesthetics and organizing.

After talking to Ms. Peggy a few times and discussing what she does in the space and what her vision for it would be, we came up with these specific ideas:

IKEA, IKEA, IKEA.  
Donna and Pastor made the three hour round trip trek to IKEA and came back with the bulk of the new items.  EXPEDIT, a.k.a. cubbies, are great for classrooms because they only stick out 15 inches and they are a solution for stowing teaching items as well as giving a child their own space for crafts and personal items.  Throw some CAPITA legs on them, and they get a little dressed up.  I chose the 4 inch legs for these because I didn't want the cubbies eating up all of my wall space.  Obviously, tables and chairs are needed too.  Chairs can be expensive, and if you need 20 of them, it can start to eat at the bulk of your budget.  Ikea, once again, had affordable, stackable, durable, colorful chairs for around $15 a piece.
  

The tables were Kilzed and coated with special dry erase paint from Lowe's to make dry erase tables.  We went for stools around the table to keep the room from looking cluttered with too many chairs, plus, they stack neatly and efficiently when not in use.  And did I mention that they were highly affordable when you have to buy 20!  Ms. Peggy and her husband, Butch, painstakingly put all 30-some stools and chairs together.

    John and his wife, Teresa put together a TON of plastic bins from IKEA (those little suckers are NOT a snap to put together), while Bill and Dan wrestled the big furniture together.  IKEA furniture is only fun to buy and play Tetris with--attempting to fit it all in your vehicle.  Each child and teacher has a labeled personal cubby to stow away things during class.  There were A LOT of cubbies, but one needs places for teaching materials/resources and counter space to work on.  The red stepping book shelf is actually supposed to be mounted onto the wall, but the studs were not where they should have been, so we improvised and velcroed it to the cubby.

Target.com also came in handy.  In no way is this an endorsement to get a credit card, but IF you are disciplined and trustworthy enough to have/payoff a Target Card, ordering things WILL save you time and money, 5% to be exact.  Everything is still returnable to your local Target if it doesn't work out.  Forgot to mention, FREE shipping and handling right to your door so you don't have to battle through the store with kids in tow (not too many times, anyway:)

This room makeover may not have killed me, but it almost did my husband, Tim, who lovingly used his handyman abilities to mount these dog tails (from IKEA, of course) on boards that Pastor Kevin cut and beveled and Donna painted.  The "WELCOME TO JUNIOR CHURCH" is actually a vinyl lettering custom ordered from fruitfulvinecreations.com.  Tonya is the owner and is great to work with, giving churches a 20% discount.  You create your saying, choose your size, font, and color.  We wanted it to be mobile, so we transferred the vinyl onto a board instead of directly onto the wall.  

Typically, I LOATHE papers flapping on walls, or really anywhere, for that matter.  That's what bulletin boards/cork boards are for.  In this case, though, the partitions cannot withstand a lot of weight, so we had to consider that.  We also had to consider that the partitions, in fact, act as bulletin boards and allow one to put things up with tacks.  

This is a shower curtain from Target.com of a colorful world map.  We paired a white shower curtain behind it to make it pop and hung it with shower curtain hooks.  The stories are from a Samaritan's Purse magazine mounted on card stock paper.

This is a bar table from IKEA that we turned into a podium.  Notice the two arms under the table top.  You can hang your purse and bag from them without the table tipping over!  Pretty efficient of them.  Not pictured, but we purchased a $5 laptop prop as a book prop for on top of the new podium.

In the 25 years that Ms. Peggy has taught, she has had rules.  I wanted to try to write them out so that she and the kiddos could reference them as needed.  The print is from a shop on Etsy called Alexander Creative.  It's a custom print where you can choose the color of the background and your own words.  

The "ONLY SPEAK WORDS THAT MAKE SOULS STRONGER" is a print that's ready-to-order and available in a slew of cool color options.  All frames are from Art To Frames on Amazon.com.  More about them below.  

These are 24x36 frames--all of which have been ordered on Amazon.com with a company called, Art To Frames--great company from Brooklyn, NY to work with and shipping discounts offered when ordering multiples--and they are kind of a creation after that.  I painted the cardboard that came with them bright white and used wall decals also ordered from Amazon.com.  The black lettering is vinyl poster lettering from Target and the yellow is custom from Fruitfulvinecreations.com.  

  Ms. Peggy kept coming back to color--she wanted to use a lot of color to make the room more appealing to young kids.

 This might look like a mess, but it's ACTUALLY organized on a peg board that you might find in a garage.  The idea behind this is if you can see it, you might be more prone to use it.

These are materials that Ms. Peggy likes to use in different classes--games, felt boards, etc.  Tim, my big handyman, mounted the pegboard as well as any shelving, and he also drilled a hole for the lock on Ms. Peggy's yellow prize chest seen below.

The labeling idea came from my sister-in-law, Ang who uses name badge holders (Staples will give you a 20% discount if you buy 3 of an item) and cable zipties to attach the holders to various bins.  If there was not a way to use zipties, I improvised with professional strength pieces of velcro from Lowe's.  Nothing too fancy--just Word program on my computer and some white card stock paper.  I played with the fonts and chose a fun, but legible one.  The little orange and green cups on the counter are actually from the bathroom clearance end cap at Target.  They are now whatever we want them to be.  Someone wise once said that white is the number one color that people forget to use when decorating.  Guess what?!  We tried to remember that.  The little white marker holders on the counter tops are from the dollar bins at Target.

The white and turquoise, and also polka dot bins are from Target.com.  The clear LEKMAN boxes are from IKEA.  The tall polka dot trash can is actually a laundry hamper from Target.com.


Ms. Peggy was tickled with all the work so many put into this redo.  Lydia, my niece, helped Gram (Donna) paint the walls, while Grant changed out ruined ceiling tiles and flickering bulbs.  

Anyone who has had Ms. Peggy knows that the bigger church's children's programs have NOTHING on what she has to offer our kids on Sunday mornings here at Lighthouse.
I just want to say that Ms. Peggy is in a league of her own.
She loves her Lord and loves the kids of Lighthouse.
We are honored to serve with her.

Happy Birfday Unt Annie!

"The best birthdays of all are those that haven't arrived yet."--Author Unknown

Tim with an ice cream cake at a "combined" birthday party

Yesterday, we had the true privilege of celebrating dear "Unt" Annie's birthday.  Aunt Annie is Tim's sister, making her my sister-in-law.  We just call each other sisters, though.

Aunt Annie, serving on Thanksgiving in her home

I don't know why we tend to wait until after a person has passed into the next life to speak of how we truly feel.  The papers are full of Obits and Eulogies recapping a soul's existence here on this planet.

So, in a small attempt to not let this life pass without acknowledging what is noble and lovely, let me tell you about "Unt" Annie by referencing Titus 2.

She is reverent in the way she lives.  

She honors her husband by her actions and by what she speaks of him, even when he is not present.  Aunt Annie does this because she loves the Lord her God.  

Uncle Bob, Fedor, and Tim on a Sunday afternoon at The Hernandez Estate

She is not a slanderer.  

She is definitely not addicted to much (or any) wine.

She teaches me what is good through her life choices.  

These 16 kids are from 3 families!  GG is the proud beauty in the middle.

She values people as much as God does.  She considers her children a reward, as the Scriptures teach.

She practices pure and faultless religion. 

December 1, 2011--Adoption Day

She ministers to her family and to those in her church through service--the type of service that leaves you sweaty and needing a shower.

She stores up treasures in heaven.

She is devoted to leaving a Godly legacy.

She encourages me to love my husband and my children.

Tim and little Kevin

She actively and deliberately submits to her husband.  I know--I bristle at that word too and at the idea of submitting to my husband.  Aunt Annie is not super-human-woman, so don't get discouraged and think that you just can't be Biblical too.  Also, do NOT confuse this with weak, frail, fake, un-opinionated-ness that is passed off as meekness and submission in some circles.  

This is hard stuff.  I am talking about a Godly bending of the will to the one that God has placed as the leader of the family.  Just ask her about the milk and ice cream incident.:)

She is self-controlled, pure, and DEFINITELY busy at home--not by default, either.  Definitely purposeful in the affairs of her husband, children, and home.

Ang with Elijah, Lydia, Judah, and baby Priscilla

I can closely watch her life (one of the many perks of being family) and I see her choosing to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions. 

Breakfast after a sleepover at Aunt Annie's

She encourages us and humbly rebukes PRN.  (as needed) 

She is kind.

She is SO VERY kind to us and our children.  She counts it no trouble to invite 4 more over to join her brood of 7 at the drop of a hat--even in the midst of caring for a very ill husband and her own 7 children.  

Kevin, Judah, and Stella in Ang's backyard

She opens her home up to us every week and doesn't keep score of when we break, scuff, and dirty her things.

She honors her parents.

She visibly, tangibly loves others, therefore, she REALLY does love Jesus.  She doesn't just provide lip service.

She fears the Lord and seeks Him with her entire being.

She is one of my dearest friends.

I greatly value her opinion and input in my life.

And she is quite lovely.  

Aunt Annie and Priscilla

Happy Birthday, Aunt Annie!  May you have many more "best birthdays."

You are loved and we are blessed by your life, Annie.

Love,

bunbunbunbunbun 

It's More Common Than You Think

Uuuuugh...

I hate receiving the quarterly newsletter from Diakon in the mail.   

This year it came with, “The Home Decorator’s Collection” magazine, of which I have been thumbing through, feeding my discontented wants.  “The Voice of The Martyr” quarterly also came too.   

Double rats!

A few things struck me as I read through the cover story of a medically fragile child that had recently been adopted and died.

The first thing was how hollow my faith is compared to my convictions. 

This adoptive mother with her son is not the richest person in the world (I’m pretty sure), does not have more time than I do, or is magically less busy than me.  And she didn’t enjoy her medically fragile son any less than I enjoy my children simply because he wasn’t a “normal” child.   

She was pictured in her sweatshirt, holding her son’s head in her lap—his eyes shut, smiling, with his trachea tubing visible.  The article tells of how her specific dreams of having a son were fulfilled in him—reading to him, singing to him, and watching sports with him, even right up to the day that he passed away. 

It was one of those articles that hurt to read. 

I pressed on, squirming inside as disgust in myself mounted.  

John 16:33 has been tattooed on my mind lately, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.” 

The second thing that struck me while reading her well-written story was how much of my life is spent trying to avoid sorrows and trials. 

Why on earth did this woman adopt this child that was medically fragile? 

Why did she choose many sorrows in adopting a child that would pass away quickly? 

Better question is:  Why haven’t I?  

Why haven't I, as a Jesus-following, Scripture-believing and acting individual? 

Am I not called to care for orphans in some way? 

Am I not commanded to be generous and think of others better than I do myself? 

Am I not called to die every day to my wants and desires? 

Aren’t I supposed to be a living sacrifice?

I know God is working those things out in me.   

But I wonder what I can do now—today. 

After Tim and I were up for our annual review as permanency parents, our agency decided it would be best for us to try this again when we had…uh hum…more adequate accommodations.  That greatly disappointed us.  We worked at our certification like it was a full time job.  Our family worked hard too, watching our children in order for us to go to these seemingly endless trainings.

Okay. So what are we called to now?

We can pray to God on behalf of the orphans in the United States.  Some statistics have them at over 400,000 in the United States alone.  Millions world-wide. 

Pray for their protection.   

Pray for their forever families.  

Pray for God to stir the hearts of His people to care for the least of these.    

Just PRAY.  

Period.

The third thing that I was struck with as I looked through the Diakon quarterly newsletter was the photos of finalized adoptions.   

It looked amazingly similar to what God, my heavenly Father had done for me. 

 “So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves.  Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children.  Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”  (Romans 8:15)

“God sent Jesus to buy freedom for us, who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.”  (Galatians 4:5)

“God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”  (Ephesians 1:5)

Those photos looked eerily familiar to me. 

It looked like me, when I asked Jesus to save me from myself and bring me into His family. 

I imagined Jesus standing next to me, with His arm around me, saying, 

“This is MY child.  She is in MY family now.”

So, maybe adoption isn’t too unfamiliar of a concept for us to grasp. 

Apparently, it’s not for me.

I pray that it isn’t for you as well.

 

The Good Stuff

I forgot what good listenin' country music is. 

I’m talking about the older stuff, say around the time we still listened to the radio in West Virginia—usually driving home in “Big Red” with our luggage wrapped in black garbage bags to keep it from the possibility of getting wet. 
True hillbilly style.

 Good stuff. 

We were married in 2002, so around the time Kenny Chesney was throwing out hits.

 

I recently heard a song that we used to listen to called, “The Good Stuff,” by Kenny Chesney. 

A newlywed man got into a big fight with his wife and headed to the bar for some good stuff—whiskey.

The bar tender told him that he couldn’t find it there. 

Falling in love, getting married, and, “…Eating burnt suppers the whole first year—asking for seconds to keep her from tearin’ up…that’s the good stuff.” 

I’ll spare you most of the details of our sticky-sweet love story, (and to keep anyone from throwing up in their mouth) but I think if we could have snorted each other up that short courtship, we would have. 

Getting married, being together in a tiny apartment, sleeping in a full-sized bed with a 315lb lineman—that’s the good stuff.  

I wish that this life could be filled with ONLY the good stuff.

It's what much of my talk to God is about.

Thank you for the good stuff.

And keep it coming.

The bar keep goes on to speak about his wife, “.. .I spent five years in the bar when the cancer took her from me.”

Definitely not good.

Tearing tendons, dealing with career disappointments, miscarrying, sicknesses, lost jobs—bad stuff.

Overwhelming at worst.

Manageable at best.

 

While there is an array of bad stuff, 

in my life it has generally served a few different purposes.

One of those being to give clearer perspective on just how good our everyday happenings REALLY are. 

 

Drinking coffee in the mornings with Tim.

Hugging and kissing the kids throughout the day.

Nursing the baby.

Teaching the kids about life through ours.

Watching the kids interact with their grandparents, cousins, and friends throughout the week.

And making love with my husband.

Good stuff.

   The bar keeper recounts his memories over a glass of milk with the young man and tells him that he’s,

“Been sober for three years now because the one thing stronger than the whiskey was the sight of her holding my baby girl—the way she adored that string of pearls I gave her the day that our youngest boy, Earl, married his high school love. And it's a new tee-shirt saying: 'I'm a Grandpa'. Being right there as our time got small. And holding her hand, when the Good Lord called her up.
Yeah, man, 

that's the good stuff."

Hopefully the good stuff is there and you can identify it too.  
Whatever is good, think on these things.

Meat Sweats

It started with 3 racks of smoked ribs crusted with BBQ sauce.   

You heard me.
T-H-R-E-E.  

This was part of what Tim ate in celebration of Independence Day about a month back.  By all accounts, he should weigh 450lbs, but he doesn’t.  He's 235.  He works hard to stay around there.

His physique is more like that of a tight end, due largely in part to his obsession with extreme physical activity. 

Three racks of ribs wasn’t a big deal for him to eat—we were used to his high caloric intake, and most of those calories once had parents.  Delicious parents.
Let me clarify here.  I am not describing overeating—it's honest hunger, like back in his college football days when he would eat a few appetizers, two entrees, and still not be satisfied as others looked on mortified at the amount he could consume.
It was simple supply and demand in his case—and still is.
Mothers and wives of linemen won’t pass judgment on this story too harshly because this too is their familiar life—waiting for the feeds to be over.

Needless to say, Tim felt sick that Fourth of July.  Recounting that day, he said it was somewhere between the 2^nd and 3^rd racks of ribs.  And he SHOULD HAVE felt sick—common sense tells us that no one should consume that much pig in one sitting.  His belly gurgles fell on deaf ears.   

His family lovingly dubbed it, “The Meat Sweats.”  A few others began diagnosing themselves with this faux disease as well, and it was left at that.
"You got 'The Meat Sweats."
Plain and simple.

Weeks later, “The Meat Sweats” was still rearing its ugly head.  A voice of reason (Aunt Carol Brown--a registered nurse) stated that perhaps this fake diagnosis was no longer a good reason to ignore what was looking like a real problem.
Never trust a diagnosis from the Van Nordstrom Clinic (Seinfeld reference).
The cause of his symptoms ranges from gastritis all the way to stomach cancer (probable, but highly unlikely).

Here are a few phrases that I have NEVER EVER heard Tim say in all our years of marriage:

--“Do you want the rest of this bagel?  There’s no way I can finish it.”

--“This oatmeal is soo good with soy milk!” 

--“I’m so full from those veggies.”

--“I’ll have the vegetarian burrito—as plain as it comes.”

--“Can I have a take home box for the rest of this meal?”

--"Spread that peanut butter REAL t-h-i-n."
--"Make sure there's no meat in it."

This IS serious.   

I guess it’s just what happens when you reach your thirties.
And have a baby--your fourth.
And lose your job--in the same week.

You’re more susceptible to stress and the consequences of nutritional dysfunction.
And most importantly, you can’t finish your bagel.

Here’s praying that his EGD (Esophagogastroduodenoscopy) turns up a case of the “Meat Sweats.”