Catching my breath

I have been absolutely & unbelievably busy! So much to share!

Timmy & Sierra went to camp with church the morning after we got back from our mission trip to Appalachia. Garrett went to Grandma's for a few days. You would THINK I'd get some serious tv & bon-bon time in, but nooooooooooooo........

We went to see Jeff in the hospital to visit him & his new liver Monday night.
The next day I went to visit another friend in the hospital who the doctors didn't know what was wrong. They were concerned about liver failure, but later found out it was a bad case of mono. (That was my second adult friend to get mono this summer!)
Wednesday is bible study
Thursday we went to pick up Garrett from Grandma's out in Vermilion and to visit Timmy & Sierra at camp. Luckily, I knew about this "hair thing" ahead of time:

Timmy & Sierra at Frontlines Camp
Friday we sat for hours at Garrett's orthopedist. He'll be getting orthodics for his shoes....hopefully soon.
Friday night I had a karate demo in Northfield Village.
About midnight Friday night we picked the kids up from camp.

The following week was insane, but AWESOME! It was SPORTS CAMP week!!!!

Our church has a very cool version of vacation bible school. We offer sports for the kids! They can chose from soccer, basketball, cheerleading, and now this year karate & flag football! We have camp from 9-12 in the morning, and from 6-9 at night. I taught karate at both sessions all week. (Sierra & Timmy helped, too.)

We had about 160 kids in karate. I had the3rd & 4th graders, and I had about 50+ kids between both classes. I was exhausted, but there wasn't anywhere else I would have wanted to be.

We had 629 kids at Sports Camp this year with over 200 volunteers. It is an amazing outreach. On Sunday we have our CELEBRATION! There are blow up, music, food galore, and demonstrations from different groups. And everything is F-R-E-E!!!!!!!!!

Our karate demo team performed and then we promoted all the kids who were in our karate class that week to their first belt: orange! They were so excited, and my class rocked!!!! The parents were taking pictures and were so proud of their kids.. and they had every reason to be. Those kids worked HARD that week.... I really miss them!


After that, we had two weeks off to relax and try to recover. Yesterday, we started school. Yes, it seems early to me too. But I use an e-school and Timmy is now in high school. His classes are very different now, and he needs to start when they start. Sierra is also taking high school English, even though she is still in 8th grade!

Maybe my biggest news: I am going back to school! Yup! I start classes on Sept 8th. I'm going full time. Right now I plan on going to become a surgery tech. Who would have thought, huh?

And last, but definitely not least-
A friends son put together this video about our Appalachia trip. Enjoy!!!!!

Appalachia Mission Trip: The Movie from Spencer Tuckerman on Vimeo.

Isaiah 6:8: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

Ok... I promised a post about our Appalachia mission trip....... This year was great. There. How's that? More details????? .....fine...............

WEDNESDAY:
We left on Wednesday. The trip "officially" starts Thursday, but a core group of us go down early to get everything started. Tim drove the box truck down that carried most of the supplies our mission trip would use during out time there. Timmy rode down with him. Sierra & Garrett rode down with me in the car. We beat Tim there, but not by much. He must have really been flying around those curves in that truck.... glad I was driving myself! After we arrived and got settled, we met with the other early arrivers in the lobby of the lodge that we stay at. As we were all talking, Abby T starting screaming that Jeff P was going in for surgery!
***Jeff P is a dear, dear friend who has been fighting liver cancer. His story deserves is very own post, so short story: God is so good! He has been going through chemo and had just been moved to the top of the list on Monday. Here it was, Wednesday at about 11:30 pm, and he just got the call to come the hospital- his new liver was on its way!!!!

THURSDAY:
The next morning I hurried to check my email- Jeff had gone if for surgery at 5:45 am. We all prayed! Time to get to work!
There are a LOT of jobs we do while we are down there. I began with painting one of the houses that are on campus at Appalachia Bible College. There were quite a few people on this job. Most of those people had the sense to paint on a SHADED side of the house. Not Kathy & I however. We wanted to feel the full effect of what it is like to suffer the heat & humidity. That would HAVE to make us better people, right? LOL Well, it did make us a bit miserable... fortunately we were both able to laugh at how stinkin' miserable we were.
Only by the grace of God did we stay there and continue to paint. If that were MY house (or even YOURS for that matter) we would have been soooo outta there! But blazing sun, pitiful humidity, wasps, nor high ladders could keep us from our task at hand! We held out until Greg called it a day. Then we did a happy dance, cleaned up, packed up, and headed for the showers!
(Besides... the guys would have never let us live it down if we wimped out!)

Tim & Timmy had been driving the truck around to the different jobs and unloaded whatever materials they needed there. There were several construction jobs going on: building of a 10' x 20' wood shed for a men's shelter, forming & pouring concrete to build a basketball court for that same shelter, painting that house on the campus, another building project on the campus that I wasn't familiar with, cleaning & staining steps at ANOTHER men's shelter that we had built two years ago. We also held a vacation bible school in the town of Keystone, a women's luncheon & outreach in Keystone, as well as visit & bring supplies to two different women's shelters, etc, etc...

After a much needed shower, we got some food and joined the rest of the team (there were about 110 of us) at the lodge for instruction and fellowship. I managed to check my email again and found that Jeff's surgery had gone great, and he was recovering. Praise God!!!!!

FRIDAY:
Although the painting job was going to last the whole weekend, my time there was done. Today I had outreach work to do.

This began with shopping for groceries for a family we have worked with for (I think) 4 years now: Nancy and Pete. Pete is 39 and developmentally delayed. He lives with his mother just outside of Beckley. As with most of the people in that area, they are quite poor. We were going to visit them and bring them enough groceries to last them quite some time! One of the women on our team had just spoken with Nancy, and we knew they were going through a very stressful and trying time. A 14 year old neighbor had recently taken to shooting at them with his bb-gun whenever he saw them. They were afraid to leave their home because of this troubled young man.
When we arrived at their home, the damage caused by the neighbor was immediately obvious. He had shot out a couple windows of their home. Now mind you, they didn't have a whole lot to start with. Like those around them, they lived in an old trailer. They don't have the financial resources to fix the window, and the they knew that if they DID fix it, it would just be an invitation for this young man to aim at it again. We also found out that he was now shooting at THEM when they would step outside! He had also caused major damage to other parts of their trailer, and had broken in on at least two occasions. Nancy told us that when she DID leave, she had to pack all their medications and anything of value and take it with them, or it would be gone by the time they returned.
We also found out that their refrigerator was not working. Nancy said she would take the perishables to a friend's home. (One of the guys in our team was back there the next day to work on her fridge.)
As we stood in front of their home, the neighbor stepped outside to take a look at what we were doing. Then he went back in. Yes, we were a bit leery, but we had God on our side. We did make sure that we were between this teenager and our own children..... just in case. We prayed together and visited for a bit. We talked Pete into coming to the Celebration Picnic we had planned at the church in Beckley later that day! Pete had not left home for a few months because of anxiety.
We hugged & prayed again, then went about our work there.

That evening was the picnic. I'd love to report that 100's came from miles around....... really I would. (sigh) However, the weather wasn't very cooperative so we settled for the handfuls that did show. It also gave us a chance to get to know the others on our trip!

SATURDAY:
Saturday was spent in Keystone. Keystone is a small town about 1.5 hours from where we stayed in Beckley. Keystone was founded in 1892 by the Keystone Coal & Coke Company. It now is an amazingly poor town with a population of about 450, and an annual median household income of just over $13K in 2007. I'm guessing that figure is lower today.

I was in charge of holding the Women's Luncheon there. We hoped that the moms would all come while their children attended vacation bible school. Not all the moms came, but I got a pretty good showing.

We began with jewelry making! A couple of the young teenage girls are very good at this, so they brought all the supplies and taught the ladies. They LOVED it!!! They made some beautiful necklaces and bracelets while we got to know them.
After about an hour, the program began.

Ginger began for us. Ginger is a pediatric nurse, so she spoke to the women about basic care of babies and children. I know that for many of you, this seems odd, but many, many of these families do not understand many of the basic necessities of child-raising.
Ginger explained about diaper changing, the need to hold your baby, and to never put water or soda in a baby's bottle. She taught about basic hygiene and dental care, developmental goals, and positive discipline.
She used scripture to put this all in a spiritual light. This is the second time she had done this, and she was wonderful!!

Susan was next up. She gave her testimony about growing up in an alcoholic home. This really spoke to the women as alcoholism and drug addiction are EVERYWHERE there. She is also a counselor and author and was really able to touch the women there with her story.

I finished up the talk with my own testimony. I don't always share my "low of the lows" story with everyone, but I did that day. I wanted the women to know that NO ONE is too lost or too bad for God to love them! That ALL sin separates us from God: drug addiction, promiscuity, gossip, envy, or greed. These are all sin. Nothing we do can earn our way to heaven. Being "better than those others" won't get us to Heaven. Only by the mercy of God and by His grace can we be saved! I prayed for each of them, and asked them to pray for themselves and for others. To never give up on those that are lost, but to keep praying for them.

After I finished my testimony we took time to talk more intimately with each of the women. I got to pray one-on-one with some of them. THIS is what mission work is all about!!!!

One of the women of that church there approached me about coming again in the fall to speak. I started to cry again and said, "Of course. I would LOVE to." Another member of the church, a male leader, also spoke to me about this. I don't have any definite plans yet, but this has been a dream of mine for some time. I know that I needed to go through everything I went through to get to where I am now. And I am in a GOOD PLACE!

I have felt God telling me to share, share, share my story.
I believe that my past was not intended only for MY salvation to happen, but to help others change their eternal address as well!

Next we had lunch! After all, what is a luncheon without lunch?! This was another chance for fellowship with the women of Keystone. The lunch was very nice (sandwiches, desserts, and sweet tea) and we gave them each gift bags filled with personal pampering items.

Our youth then performed the "Lifehouse" skit there before we left. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I've posted it here. This was done by a different group of youth at our church about a year ago, but the story is the same- AMAZING!



We left food, household supplies, and toiletries for many of the families of Keystone, then headed to Welch.

*****

We have visited a battered women's shelter in Welch each year for the past 5 years. The stories these women have vary from very sad to horrific. This year there were 25 women there, most of them have children or grandchildren with them. The women in the shelter LOVE it when we come. We do all we can to pamper them while we are there. We provide the residents there with haircuts & styles, manicures, & make-up. We bring many, many supplies including food & toiletries. We bring books & movies for them. We bring school supplies and backpacks for the children. We do activities with the children there. This is a wonderful opportunity for the young people on our trip to interact with the young people there. When everyone is together, we all 'just people'. My kids LOVE working with the kids there! We also get a chance to minister to the women there and lift them with the hope of Jesus. That is the saddest part... many of them just don't have hope anymore.

Our youth performed the "Lifehouse" skit there. I believe this was the highlight at the shelter. They were all in tears and asked the youth to perform it again. Most of the women were praying with our women after this. God is SO good!!!! We left there and headed back to the Bible College

SUNDAY:
Sunday is the day we all head home. We pack up, eat breakfast together, and hit the road for the 5 hour drive back. We are all excited to share our stories at breakfast, but we are all exhausted.

The ride home is usually nothing remarkable, really. However, about 2 hours into the trip Tim called me.

"Well, the vacation is over, " he said.
I thought the truck had broke down. Oh man.... the kids need to get home... they leave for camp early in the morning..........

"Yea," I said, "what's up?"

"I'm going back to work tomorrow morning."

I was too in shock to whoop or cheer.

"Really?"

"Yup."

"Wow."

LOL. After 8 months of being laid off, that was how our conversation went! I made some calls to let people know, and so did he. THEY all got more excited than we did! Go figure....

So that, was our trip. Totally and completely awesome from start to finish!

GOD IS NOW HERE!!!

2 Timothy 4:7- I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith

We head to West Virginia tomorrow! YEAH! The kids are so excited they can barely sit still. Tim, Timmy, and some others from church will load the box truck tonight, and Tim will drive it down there tomorrow. Sierra, Garrett and I will follow in our car.

Last night was our karate Christmas party. It is always a nice time. Last night it was even more special because MANY families brought in food & supplies for us to bring with to Appalachia. Many of these families are feeling the budget crunch themselves, but are still willing to reach out to others.

I was asked to lead the blessing last night. My amazing pastor, Rick Duncan, helped me with part of it. Thanks, Rick! I know you are incredibly busy, but you still took the time to get back to me. You are such a blessing to me and many, many others!
It was NOT a "bless this food, keep us safe" type of blessing. My intention was not to offend, but I refuse to be so concerned about NOT offending, that I do not reach out.

This is what I used:

Heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing us together safely tonight. We thank you for all you have given us, and ask that you always keep us humble, remembering that to much of the world we are rich beyond imagination- we have a safe place to live, clean water to drink, clothes to keep us warm, and enough food to eat. I thank you for those who thought of others that do not have these things, and brought food and items to help those families in Appalachia.

We ask that you keep us safe in our travels home this evening. We ask you to bless this food- that it nourishes our bodies and keeps us healthy. We ask for your blessings on all our karate families. Especially for J's grandmother, for M's father, and for K's father. Lord, you know what they are going through. We ask for healing, but mostly for the love and comfort only You can give them.

2 Timothy 4:7- I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Dear Lord, You are the Creator God. You made our bodies to be used for Your glory. Thank You for giving us the privilege of using these bodies to learn karate. Help us to always use our skill for Your purposes. There is evil in this fallen world, and one day You will make all things right. But meanwhile, help us to fight- body, mind, and soul- against anything contrary to Your wise and good purposes. Help us to help the helpless and to defend the defenseless. Use the disciplines and skills we have learned to equip us to fight the good fight of faith. May we finish well. May we keep the faith. And may we honor Jesus, the only One who perfectly fought the good fight of faith, who dies and who rose again to save all who believe. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

****

I'm sure this didn't go over well with everyone there, but I pray that it worked on thier hearts. One of the people there is staunchly anti-religion. This person was included in the prayers for healing. I pray that this didn't anger that person, but instead helped them to experience the love that ONLY comes from a relationship with Christ.

Re-Born Identity

Friday we will be heading to Keystone, WV again. We do mission work in the Appalachian Mountain areas with others from our church. We began in the Beckley area, and in the last 5 years we've branched out.

We first went to Keystone 1 1/2 years ago in the summer to clean up the park area, to spend one-on-one time with residents while we pampered them, and to hand out food and supplies to needy families there.

MOST of Keystone is living in poverty. It is a small coal mining town near the southern tip of West Virginia. The mine used to employ about 1000, until it was exhausted in 1986. Now the mine there only employs a small handful of people. There is very little work to be found anywhere nearby. As bad as the rest of the county thinks the economy and unemployment are now..... it's been that way for years and years in Keystone. They were also hit his 2 big floods in the last several years.

This will be our second "Christmas" trip. Yes, we bring presents. Yes, we bring food. But the most important thing we bring is hope in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The time I've spent with individuals there brings joy that just cannot be measured!!!!!

This past summer I was approached by a woman there. After hearing my testimony the day before, she searched me out. We talked for just a short time when I knew that she not only HAD struggled with drugs (as she had told me), but was currently using and was high right then. We prayed together, and we had others pray with us. One of the other women I was with then put her in touch with services to help her get clean. I can't wait to see if she will be there this weekend!

One of the biggest highlights of my trips to the Appalachians was my time with Josh. Josh had been speaking with one of the men on our trip while getting his hair cut. The two of us sat and talked for quite awhile. He opened up about his past with drugs and how he was determined to stay clean when he left the half-way house we were visiting him in. I began sharing Christ with Josh and he was more than a little receptive. Finally, I asked Josh if I could pray with him to accept Christ into his life and he said YES. We prayed as I held his hands in mine. By the time we finished, we were both crying. I hugged him and told him that I loved him and God loved him. He said, "I love you too. Thank you!"

As a mother, I can honestly say that nothing in the world compares to giving birth.

And I can honestly say that nothing in the world compares to seeing someone be born again.