So...It's been a YEAR!

Two of my English students during Taiwan's 10/10 celebration.

It's amazing how quickly the time can fly. Life has been life. It passes way faster than you realize, and then you look at your blog and realize that you haven't posted anything in over a year! Oh my! I don't know if anyone really missed my ramblings but let me apologize for my absence and move on.

So what have we been up to lately? Let me see...

Last time I posted we had just left McCarthy Baptist Church and were praying about God's next step for us. Shortly after that post it was confirmed in our hearts and lives that God was calling us to Taiwan. I know! I was totally shocked too! If you want more of the low down on how that came about please continue reading on our Taiwan Ramblings blog.

The other really big news is WE HAVE A BABY! After one confirmed miscarriage, one possible missed miscarriage, and years of trying to conceive, we landed in Taiwan and conceived a baby within a week. Talk about life changes. We definitely weren't expecting that to happen! Our beautiful little Noelle is now ten weeks old and is thriving. We love her so much and we praise God for the special blessing that is our baby girl. We are honored and humbled to be her parents, and we are striving show her our love and God's love every day.


I know this is a relatively short post compared to all that has been happening but you can find more details on our Taiwan blog. Until next time!

Grace and Peace,

Christiana

Kansas City Misison Trip 2011

Pastor Schiele was our mission group's
contact at Grace Baptist Church. He
made our lives so much easier! Thanks!

Have you ever had a week when you are totally surrounded by teenagers in the sweltering heat doing manual labor and loving it? I have! I know that it doesn't sound like much fun but when you are doing it all for the glory of God and the fellowship of believers it really can be amazign!

This past week was our fourth mission trip with the youth of Villebrook Baptist Church. In order we have served in Springfield, MO; Springfield, MO; Memphis, TN; and now Kansas City, MO. I love youth and I love missions, and it is amazing to see the students that my husband has mentored in his 13 years of doing youth ministry that are now youth ministers themselves. Our group this year included three groups that were led by former "Jimmy kids".

For eight days, six groups from three different states came together for a total of about 90 people serving. We had everyone from infants to senior adults living together at Grace Baptist Church. I just have to stop for a second and say how grateful we are to Pastor Lavendar and Pastor Schiele for allowing us to invade their facilities and for being very gracious and accommadating to our group. If you don't know anything about Grace, it is in a pretty rough area in Kansas City. That in and of itself was definitely out of our kids comfort zones. Not to mention that it was uncomfortable because it was possibly the hottest week of the year! So we all bonded together in the midst of our discomforts.

Everyday, our teams would undertake three hours of morning service. During that time we divided into groups that did tutoring for elementary school children, teaching life skill classes at Ivanhoe Community Center, and gardening in a local park. Then we would all meet back at Grace for lunch.

In the afternoon we headed out for three more hours of service. This time our teams did a Daycamp at Macedonia Baptist Church, community revitalization with Ivanhoe, street witnessing around the KC Metro, and services projects for the people of the Kansas City Baptist Temple. I was pleasantly surprised at the consistently great attitudes our kids had--even when they were shoveling sewage in 100 degree heat. Once our work for the day was finished we headed to the YMCA for showers and back to Grace for supper and worship.

It made for some really long but really awesome days. I am happy to say that we saw four confirmed salvations during our time of service plus we planted many more seeds. Not to mention the changes that God did in the hearts of our students during this trip.

Thank you for all of your prayers and support as we undertook this great adventure.

Voices of the Faithful: Book 2

This week, I am reviewing "Voices of the Faithful Book 2". If you love the first "Voices of the Faithful" book--like I do--you won't be disappointed by the second volume!

Overview:

"Voices of the Faithful Book 2" is a compilation of devotions written by Southern Baptist Missionaries who serve through the International Mission Board (IMB). They have been called by God and assigned by the IMB to reach the unreached people groups of the world. Many IMB missionaries wrote devotions for this book that tell stories of the work God is doing among their people group and in their own lives as well. The "Voices of the Faithful Book 2" is designed to be a read (one devotion at a time) for a whole year.

Review:

"Voices of the Faithful Book 2" is well-written. The stories are moving and very eye-opening. I particularly like that their is a specific prayer at the end of the devotion which relates to what you have just read rather than being something generic. I felt it lived up to my expectations as someone who has already read and loved "Voices of the Faithful". I also appreciate that the identity of individuals working in high risk areas has been concealed but you don't lose the personal connections in their stories. Hearing about the work of these foreign missionaries will make you smile, laugh, and cry! You never truly know what it's like to give up everything and go serve God in a place that is totally foreign to you until you actually do it, but "Voices of the Faithful Book 2" brings the experience and emotions a bit closer to home.

I give "Voices of the Faithful Boook 2" 4.5 out of 5 stars!

This book was a free copy provided to me by Thomas Nelson Publishing for review purposes.

Daughters of the King Pt 1: Evaluation

Two weeks ago, we went on our annual mission trip. This year we traveled to inner-city Memphis. When we began planning this trip back in December, we decided that this year we were not only going to challenge our teenagers and adults with physical and spiritual tasks but also with mental ones. We decided that the best way to do this was to require them to take classes during their mornings. They were allowed the freedom to choose classes from a list of course offerings and then they were required to attend their chosen classes all week. The other ministers’ wives and I decided we could best handle our other responsibilities by joining forces to teach a girls only class. During this class the girls learned many different lessons as each wife took time to share the lesson that God had laid on her heart for the week.


For my lesson, I taught the girls about being Daughters of the King. My time that week was limited but I want to take the next couple posts that I make to further expand and break down the lesson that I presented to these beautiful young women. We all need to learn about being the Daughters of the King!

Daughters of the King Pt 1: Evaluation

How do you view yourself?

When the girls entered the room on mission trip, I handed each of them a marker and a pad of sticky notes. They were to write one word or phrase on each sticky note that she felt described herself. Once everyone had the opportunity to write five to six different things down I collected the written on sticky notes. Then the girls and I divided them into positive and negative columns and hung them on one section of the classroom wall. Let me just say that as I prepared this lesson, God used it to convict me of some of the attitudes that I have toward myself and how I see myself. Knowing the attitudes I often have, I was not surprised to see much of the same in the girls we were working with.

So what did I find…

Positive.
Let me just start by saying, I was pleasantly surprised to see more in the positive category that I hoped. Here are some of the things the girls said that were positive about themselves.

Smart                                              Good Smile
Friendly                                           Good Sense of Humor
Tall                                                  Athletic
Hard working                                   Musical
Artistic

Many of the girls had the same or similar to the things listed above so I have simplified.

Negative.
I really expected the negative column to be totally overwhelming and in truth it was better than I thought but still twice as big as the positive column. Here are some of the things the girls said that were negative about themselves.

Fat                                                 Overweight
Short                                              Zit Faced
Lazy                                               Lonely
Friendless                                       Not good enough
Impatient                                        Unforgiving
Uncommitted                                  Poor
Annoying                                        Ugly
Unemployed                                   Stupid
Critical                                           Angry
Hurting                                           Worthless
Sarcastic

Many of the girls had other things to say that I do not feel that I can share with you, but I think you get the picture.


In Summary
So today we have learned that although some of us do see a few positive attributes in ourselves we are way more willing to see and believe the negative things about us.

Tune in next time to learn more about your true identity as a Daughter of the King!

Missions & Ministry

This is our whole mission team. Villebrook Baptist Church & the Harrison Baptist Association.

Whew! Just got back from a week of ministry in inner-city Memphis, Tennessee. Jimmy and I took our youth group on their third mission trip this year. The previous two years we went to Springfield, Missouri, but this year we were allowed to take them a little farther out of their comfort zones.

We used the eight days that we were on mission trip to teach and reach. Our teens had classes in the mornings to challenge their brains and equip them mentally for life and missions work. In the afternoon, we took them to their ministry sites to get down and dirty with people who live in extreme poverty. One team was doing street witnessing. Whether they were feeding the homeless at Church Without Doors or handing our water bottles in the Memphis heat, their real purpose was to share the love of Jesus Christ. Our other team did a vacation Bible school for an inner-city church that couldn't afford to do one for themselves. They loved on kids, fed them snacks, taught them songs, and connected them to people in the church who would continue to help them long after we had gone.

The week was long and hot but much good was done. I saw our students gain a new appreciation for their physical possessions and for their families. I saw children who came broken hearted leave with a smile on their face because they had found a small piece of hope and happiness. I saw God move.

I would suffer all the heat and heartache in the world to have the joy of seeing people come to Jesus!