Home from Africa and jetlagging

It's 2:00am and I am wide awake! I arrived home from Africa on Saturday morning and have not seemed to shake off the jetlag. So I am up and not sure what to do to fill my time at this hour of the morning. I have caught up on the little tv that I watch and tried reading a bit. I thought I would blog since I have been neglecting it for so long.

I am not really sure what to say though. This last month has been an incredible adventure. Robert and I celebrated our one year anniversary on May 11th. Some days it is wild to think that I am married and own a home- when did I grow up? Can you believe it?! Being married to Robert is one of the best decisions I have ever made. He is the most perfect husband for me.

Then for the last three weeks I have been in southern Africa with mission teams. I have had the privilege of going to Africa three times in the last four years and each experience has been drastically different. They are incomparable. I have come to learn that you should go with little or no expectations because God always has something planned that is more than you could have imagined.

On May 18th a few of us left early for Swaziland to set up for a Leadership Conference. Teams started arriving on the 23rd. This conference was hosted and run by HPC: Swaziland campus, as well at three churches stateside (Celebration in Jacksonville, Life Church in Memphis, and HPC). We had speakers from these churches and Household of Faith. It was an AWESOME Conference. Pastors from all over southern Africa came to hear about unity in the body of Christ. They served together on an outreach and received tools and resources to use to develop their ministry areas. The whole conference ran smoothly and was just remarkable. Planning for and running the conference was most of the first two weeks of the trip. From there we enjoyed a night at the Hlane game park and then headed to Mozambique. There we served at HPC: Mozambique and helped Pastors Isaac and Carol Williams with service. On Thursday night we hosted an outdoor worship night which was...wow! Over 700 people came out to the grounds to worship together!

God really did something in me these last three weeks there and I have truly enjoyed it. I can hardly put into words the work that God is doing in me this summer but it is rejuvenating and I feel like he is refreshing me!
Do you ever feel like you just need God to move... and then he does? I always think it is so funny that I am surprised by his faithfulness. I just imagine his face looking down on me with this thought like "my sweet child, why do you doubt me still?"

Happy Birthday Graham!

Yesterday, our good friends Lynn & Shaun Ray had a beautiful baby boy, Graham Emerson Ray. He is one of the most adorable children I have ever seen (alongside another favorite of mine- Elias Turner). I got to visit him and his proud mom and dad at the hospital today. Check out this handsome picture of the little man and of a birth-day cake I made for him.




Not being a mom yet myself and definitely not ready yet, I just want to send a shout out to Moms everywhere. Whether you are a new mom or an "old" mom, what you do and who you are is beyond remarkable. Your selflessness for your child, long hours, late nights, and constant feedings all the way to long talks, homework help, and conflict resolutions... Moms are just the most fantastic people on the planet. On behalf of all children of every age anywhere, I want to thank you for your love. Lynn, Jessica, Karen, Nikki, Joy, and every mom I have ever had the privilege of knowing--- Wow! You are amazing!!

A Lesson from the Slopes: Vision changes direction

This weekend Robert and I (with his friend John and his girlfriend Mary) went on a getaway vacation to Taos, NM, where I learned to downhill ski.



Ironic that I, being from "the north", never really skied before now. While our pro-skier men took on the black diamonds, Mary and I took some basic lessons. Lee I (Iacocca as I called him), while arrogant at best, proved to be more of a deep thinker than a great ski instructor. He made one comment that I think applied much further than the snow capped mountains of New Mexico. "When your vision goes, there your direction will follow." It was so true, as I directed my eyes toward the tree, my body followed almost involuntarily.

I think about how that statement is so true for life: whatever you have your eyes upon, that is where you are headed. That is why scripture says, "without vision the people perish". Without a goal or purpose or dream to set your eyes upon, how can you move to action to attain it?

Lord, what are my eyes set upon? Are they things of you? What is the direction in which it is taking me?

Beef... It's what's for dinner.

So tonight I thought that I would go out on a limb and try making something only partially using a recipe. For some this may be child's play, but I have trouble venturing out to the world of cooking without recipe. I often try but then just get nervous that something will go terribly wrong and I will ruin dinner, so I just revert back to the recipe I started with. But tonight I am trying beef stew. I figure it can't be that difficult right? Just beef, veggies, beef broth, and some spices. We will see how it goes. I am slow cooking it and just poured everything that I wanted into the crock pot and now I will wait. And while I was waiting I thought, what better time than this to blog...

I like the crock pot, I definitely don't use it nearly as much as I should. It is one of those kitchen items that is only used once in a while but if you don't have it, you miss it at those clutch moments.

Speaking of the kitchen, I think that may be my niche. I was thinking about how every blog I read seems to have a niche. For example, some it is about being a mom, others scrapbooking (or for my friend Jessica, it's both), even others blog about blogging. I think what will keep me going on this blog journal is cooking. I just love it. As you can tell from above, I am not that great at it yet, but the whole kitchen/dining experience just intrigues me.

I was born to a unique situation where my dad loved cooking and my mom baked. So I grew up loving both the art of cooking and the science of baking. Both are so significantly different and yet I am not partial to either. Just put me to work in a kitchen and I am happy.

Williams Sonoma and Customer Service

When I was growing up, my mom taught me all about customer service. She would critique companies (even her own) on how they were doing in the area of customer service. She taught classes on it and we would enjoy commenting on how we were treated after any experience at a restaurant, spa or other vendor.

Well today I had an experience that I wanted to make sure to share with each of you. I will forever shop at Williams-Sonoma because they have service down. It is who they are and how they respond in every situation. The first thing you will notice when you walk into a store is that they always are cooking something... today it was a double chocolate chip brownie cake. The aroma was heavenly. Samples for everyone! Another thing that I love about this store is they are all experts in the area of the kitchen. They even offer classes of incredible variety for anything you could possibly want to learn about. But I digress...

For our wedding we received some all-clad pans (which I highly recommend and may even blog on later). To make sure that I was taking proper care of these expensive items, I attended a free "all about all-clad" class at Williams Sonoma (I told you classes of every kind). There I learned the rules of the kitchen and proceeded to obey. However, somehow my pan got a stain on it. I hestitated to bring it in because I thought that pans just do this as you cook with them, but I thought better of it and went to the experts. The woman was so helpful, offering advice that maybe I hadn't followed every rule to the T and that electric stoves can be finicky. But without a second thought or arguing about my carelessness with this item, she promptly went to the back and brought out a new pan for me. No charge, no argument, just replaced it and said to come back anytime I had any other questions or concerns. I sure will Williams-Sonoma. I will be back more often than you may hope.

Hopefully you have had some great customer service experiences, or maybe some horror stories, please share yours!