Women's Retreat at Columbia Community Church

Tomorrow I head out with my mom for her church's spring retreat. We'll drive from my parents home in Kennewick, Washington to Clearwater Lodge at Camp Spalding in Newport, Washington. The theme of the retreat is Dwell Well; which is the same theme MOPS is using this year. The verse that they asked me to focus on is John 14:17 "...he lives with you and will be in you."

I've been praying and thinking about this retreat for almost a year now. And it's a real treat to finally be here with these ladies. I got in a few days early to spend time with my mom and dad. And then today I taught at the women's bible study. I loved being with this group of women as they work their way through the book of Matthew. They have a vibrant and growing ministry to the women of their church and it was delightful to see!

I'd love it if you would pray for me. I'll be teaching 4 times during the weekend and I love the material that the Lord has laid on my heart. I'm also very aware that he has an agenda and I really want to be sensitive to his leading and guiding.

Josh has is at home with the kids and they are doing great. He did say the other day that they are making good use of the Kraft macaroni and cheese we've imported!

Snowy Easter Sunday

Saturday morning we awoke to giant fat flakes of snow falling from the sky! Luke came down the stairs saying,"'no!" (meaning snow!) How strange is that! No open toed sandals or short sleaved shirts for us!

But now here we are on early Monday morning. And I want you to know I had to chose between taking time to make coffee or getting these pictures out to you!

I am headed to the states this morning and Josh is holding down the fort around here with all four kids. I'll be speaking at a womens conference for next weekend and I would love your prayers. The verse we are focusing on is from John 14:6 and Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit. He says, "You know him for he is in you and will be with you." I am very excited but it's so hard to leave Josh and the kids!

The Empire Strikes Back

So Saturday night we hunkered down in the living room with a plate of Wheat Thins (from the stateside stash that we only dip into when we're feeling needy), cheese slices, a bowl of popcorn and V Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back. We laughed and laughed about Yoda and how funny he is with the flashlight that he steals from Luke. Of course we had to make a few, "Luke, I am your father." cracks.

But what really got me was this one. I was giving Blake a bad time about all the mushy scenes that happen between Han Solo and Princess Leah. I pretended like I was talking with Luka and I kept saying things like, "I know. But Blake likes these love scenes so we just have to grin and bear it." And then Blake would flinch and say, "MOM!"

So then we started joking about sweet little Becca. "Oh yeah, Becca really loves all the blood and fighting." I sort of summed it all up saying to Luka, "Blake likes the love scenes and Becca likes the violence." to which Blake acted like he was about to attack me and said, "Then Becca's gonna LOVE this!"

I can't get over how funny that kid can be!

Josh turned 40 yesterday!

He's always said he couldn't wait to be 40. Ever since we were doing ministry in Upper Heyford, England and parents would walk into youth group and look around for the leaders, look right at us and keep on looking; Josh has said that he'll be glad when he finally turns 40. Well, yesterday he did. And I think you'll permit me to say he's still got it!
We celebrated all week! We had a team meeting where we featured cherry pie instead of birthday cake. A tradition for us when we celebrate Josh. Then our friends the Jackson family and the Okorn family prepared a delicious meal with a buffet of foods you could eat with your fingers. (Josh has been into dipping his food since he and Terry were roommates in college!) And then last night was chicken faijtas and American Idol with me and the kids. He didn't party too long since there were still loose ends to tie up and the next morning he had an early departure for this years Global Youth Inititive conference in Israel. It's nice when your job takes you to exotic places!
Happy Birthday Josh!

A visit from our cousins!

Last week Josh's brother Dave and his family came for a visit! They live in the Czech Republic (actually Dave is our boss!) and it was their "spring" break so they decided to visit us and sample the delights that Slovenia has to offer. They got to ski on the nearby slopes, spend a day in Venice (only a few hours drive away) and Croatia as well as get in on a staff meeting with our team here. And we had great cousin and Aunt and Uncle time.In the evenings we ate dinner, hung out and laughed and talked in to the wee hours of the morning! We even got the latest episode of American Idol and turned our imported Oreo cookies into shakes...just to remind ourselves that we're Americans! David A is who we are cheering for although we do have other favorites as well. With all these Patty's under one roof there was quite a lot of musician speak going on. After the door closed behind our cousins we sighed and talked about how glad we are to have family who live on the same continent and how blessed we are to love to be together with all of them!

Looking back to Christmas

I've been wanting to add this YouTube video to our blog but haven't known how! This week Josh's brother Dave and his family are visiting and I got some good instruction time this morning from my nephew Tyler! Thank you Tyler!

The clip is a little more than 7 minutes and it's from a TV show called Duhovni Utrip which means Spiritual Heartbeat. It's religious program that has come to our church and filmed some of our events. We were very pleased with the report and the response of the people who attended.

In the interview you see Katarina Bordner, one of our JV missionaries and the worship leader for our church and also Dubravka Turinski our pastor's wife who very clearly explained our church and why Christmas is more meaningful than just one day. Also, Dubravka is standing in the Sunday School room and you can see Kendra's name behind her on a poster for memorizing bible verses!

If you want to cut to the parts that have our kids and Josh performing you can see the kids section around the 3:20 mark and Becca has a little solo that's running in the back ground. Blake is standing behind her and Kendra is on the right (struggling with her shepherd's robe:)) Josh sang many times and gave a testimony in Slovene about the real reason for Christmas. One girl interviewed says that she liked his story because it was deep and very real life. The clip of him singing comes around the 4:50 mark.

The room that Josh and Steve built

When Uncle Steve came to visit this year for Christmas we put him to work! Since adding Luke to our family 20 months ago we have moved him from room to room trying to make our space work. The bedrooms in our home are not so very big but the girls have shared the larger room since we moved in. They are very happy in there, sometimes too happy as I have to "remind" them that it's bed time and no more giggling! And since there isn't a lot of space we tend to clean out the clutter sooner than might otherwise happen.





Well, Blake has been in the smaller room and trying to add baby boy Luka to 11 year old Blake's space has been interesting. While Blake has been more than willing; we ran up against a problem. Basically, Blake wants to be asleep at 2 a.m. while Luke prefers to scream, I mean call out and see if anyone might be awake and want to play.







My mother says that none of my children have been fabulous sleepers. I have to agree. Although, in my defense I'll just say that I'm first born and have obeyed all the rules and done what the books say. And yet....







Well, all these protestations haven't encouraged our sleeping boy to lie still. So we had him in our room. Just until he would grow out of it and sleep through the night. After his first birthday we saw no light in the tunnel and moved him into the bathroom. European bathrooms are quite big typically. So it would have been a great bedroom. Except that little matter of people wanting to brush their teeth or pee in your room! My mother was of course horrified. "I hope you tell them to flush with the lid down. You know they say...."







So at Christmas time Uncle Steve showed up. He hemmed and hummmed and looked around at the hallway space in front of the bathroom. He noticed the sky light there. And a kids' book shelf. Yes the ceiling does slope; but with a little knowhow two brothers could possibly make this work.







Josh and Steve drove all over town. Thank you Lord for Bauhaus, our version of Home Depot. They got the parts, used a pocket door and now, Luke has a room big enough for his crib, a basket of toys and his night light. The sky light window brings in natural light and there is even a radiator there.







He can't have any big sleep over parties in there but the other kids have all said that Luke has the coolest room of everyone now. And his sleeping has improved! I guess when you wake up and you can't call out to the guy in the next bed and no one is sneaking in to get their tooth brush you tend to get a better nights sleep!







Thank you Uncle Steve!