L.E.N.S photo challenge, A love of reading

We're starting our drive to Florida tomorrow morning! Please pray for us! I don't think any of us are looking forward to the two day drive.

I'm entering this photo into a link up at a new blog I found today, Home Is Where You Start From. The theme is "a love of reading".

Enjoy your long weekend!

Elink- Boat Edition

It was perfect. The one sunny day we've had in weeks was the day our small group went boating.

Looking back on our first semester one of the best things has been the times our small group gets together. I always look forward to twice a week fellowship!

Each person brings something special to the group.

I'm so thankful that the Lord has brought us here for this time.

Thank you to Joy for all the pictures!

FFF- May

We don't get many family pictures so this rare family photo of a moment grabbed on our way to church is one of my favorites from the month of May.

Don't my men look handsome?

New Winner!

Well, this is exciting. I get to draw another winner or the CSN Stores giveaway since i never heard back from the first one.

#51 is the lucky number this time. Congratulations Luvdaylilies!

Winner, Winner!

Sara from Your Sister Friend was #35 and the winner of the CSN Stores giveaway!

You all will want to stick around because we have some thing huge in the works for September!

"Bitter Sweet"

"Bitter sweet" is a word i've heard a lot this week. I just watched this fine group of folks graduate from The Missionary Training Center tonight. It is bitter sweet in that goodbyes are always hard but it's exciting to watch where the Lord is taking them.

Jeremiah, one of my classmates wrote this on his blog. "Standing in the rear of a packed auditorium, I witnessed the graduation of 38 missionaries from NTM’s Missionary Training Center. As I glanced at the evening’s program, I felt a chill run down my spine. In my hands I held a list of names. But they were more than just names. Beside a graduate’s name there was listed the country where they would be serving. While to many the list may be inconsequential, to me it means hope. To millions of unreached tribal people, these names mean the difference between life and death. These missionaries are the ones who will bring them the hope of the Gospel. The more I think about it, the more sobered I become. While 38 is a great number, it certainly pales when I consider the vastness of the work that still needs to be done. Please join with me in praying that the Lord would continue to challenge individuals to be the voice that carries hope into the darkness."

”…how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” – Romans 10:14.

http://www.ntm.org/wp/jeremiah_finch/2010/05/19/be-the-voice/

(photos by Gordon Wohlgemut)

It's hard to believe that our first term is over and our summer break is here! We'll be staying here in Missouri for another week and then driving to Florida.

We'll be back in to start classes again in August.

Winner announced tomorrow!

Don't forget to get your name in the hat today for the giveaway!

Carla's Surprise

vIt's been a great weekend! We've fit in everything from dinner in a cave to sushi! You'll notice everything great involved food! =)

Friday evening our small group surprised Carla, our classmate and fellow small grouper, to dinner in the nations only restaurant inside a cave! It was really neat! The occasional drip on the head only served to make it more authentic. =)

Here's a video of the evening...

Carla, you've brought so much to our class. Your cheerful spirit and your caring hugs have brightened our days. We are excited to see where the Lord is leading you. Thank you for being a good example to me of walking with the Lord. Of following His leading and trusting Him to guide your next steps. I'm grateful He allowed our paths to cross this semester and know that they will again!

CSN Giveaway Starts Today!

What do kitchen gadgets, sectional sofas, and rain boots have in common?

They are all things you can find through CSN Stores online!

CSN Stores have graciously offered a $40 gift certificate for one of you, my dear readers, to use as you wish on any of their stores!

To enter just answer the question "what book are you reading right now?" or tell me about your summer plans. Ok, just about anything will do. Just leave me some comment love. =)

Do you follow my blog? If you do, thank you and give yourself an extra entry.

Blog/Tweet/Facebook about this giveaway and leave me a comment with the link.

You can leave separate comments for each entry and I need some way to contact you if you win so leave your email if you don't have a blog.

Giveaway ends May 19th.
Good luck!

Landmark LinkUp

Show us your favorite landmark in your current hometown.

I'd have to say Ha Ha Tonka State Park.

"Ha Ha Tonka State Park has a name as unique as its scenery. The park is home to multiple sinkholes, caves, springs, natural bridges, and other features associated with karst. An arm of the Lake of The Ozarks is also viewable from the park. Perhaps the park’s most famous feature is a castle ruin left after a fire."

These photos were actually taken back in November of 2006! It's just down the road so I'll have to make a trip soon to get some new pictures!

Not that the ruins have changed much since '06 but the little guy in the picture above sure has! That's my cousin Jen and Elijah (who is now four).

Now it's your turn! Link up and show us your favorite landmark from where you live!

♥ tiny handprints ♥

Check out what Ethan gave me for mother's day!

"Sometimes you get discouraged

Because I am so small,

And always leave my fingerprints

On furniture and walls.

But everyday I'm growing,

I'll be grown up someday,

And all these tiny handprints

Will simply fade away.

So here's a final handprint

Just so you can recall,

Exactly how my fingers looked

When I was very small."

 

Celebrating Grandma Jean

Jean, "God is gracious"

This is my grandmother and the women i was named after.

She's a special lady

Click on the i ♥ faces button above to see more "celebrating mom" photos!

I hope you all had a special day yesterday!

If you didn't get the chance over the weekend to link up your blog to The Missionary Mama click here.

Enter Your Link!

If you follow The Missionary Mama and have a blog then you are welcome to enter your link below! I have so many awesome readers that I love and appriciate that i want you to have a chance to show off your blogs!

So link up below!






Thanks to Chrissy at Happy Mom of 5 for the idea!

Replying to Comments

There are times when i want to reply directly to someone who has left a comment on The Missionary Mama. Some of you have your email listed in your profile so i can just hit "reply" and send you a comment back. I love being able to do that and respond to you in that way. But other times the address will say this: noreply-comment@blogger.com and that makes it impossible to reply back. Bummer!

But you can change it and it's so easy!

Here's what you do:
1. Go To Dashboard. Click on Edit profile.
2. Look for the privacy section and check the box that says Show My Email address.
3. Enter the email address you'd like to be linked back to.
4. Go to the bottom of the page and hit Save.
5. Leave a comment and prepare to hear back from me! =)

Easy right?

I forgot to share about my Uncle and Aunt and their family coming to visit from PA!
What fun to see them here and spend an afternoon with them.
Visit my Aunt's blog here!

On Saturday we are going to Springfield to visit my other Aunt and Uncle and to celebrate our little cousins birthday!

It's so nice having family not too far away.

I hope you all are enjoying your week!

Letters Home

It has been nearly a year here in Matsuye, Japan. Learning Japanese is so very difficult. It seems I may never learn. I answer all Misake San’s expostulations by assuring her that it is much more important for me to warn you to send out no more missionaries to a land with such a language, than to go on longer trying to learn it. The length of the words alone are daunting. There have been several opportunities for me to speak in meetings, usually meant for children, but men and women attend as well. It is one thing to have to speak in meetings, but to have to approach a family as they sat in front of their own house filled me with fear. I heard the Master say, “Go and tell them about Me.” I said I don’t know enough, I may make a mistake and do harm rather than good. I still heard the voice I am learning so slowly to recognize speak again, “Go and tell them about Me.” So I went and in the simplest way I repeated ‘God so loved the world’ and told them the very little I could. My words were so few and so broken as yet, but I pray that somehow He may use it to bring glory to His dear name.


My great longing is to have the “single eye” for the glory of God. I try to eliminate anything that might blur my vision, distract, deceive, or tempt others to seek anything but the Lord Jesus Himself. Why waste precious time, painful effort, on lesser things? We have no time to toy with souls. It is not by ceremonial tea making and flower arranging, not by wool chrysanthemum-making and foreign sewing learning, but it is ‘by My Spirit says the Lord’.


I feel of my helplessness, awkwardness, and ignorance and I beg of you at home to pray for me. All other powers but prayer are useless by comparison. I often think of the giants of faith like Elijah or Hudson Taylor and I know that I am nothing but a baby and I pray that which I know not teach Thou me. Lord, teach us all to pray. This work I am called to is God’s work and cannot possibly be done without the help of God’s people-you prayer warriors. I can testify of God’s faithfulness and answered prayer in my life thus far. He had to teach me to be still and know that He is God and when His time came then His will was clear. Blessed are the single-hearted, for they shall enjoy much peace. If you refuse to be hurried and pressed, if you stay your soul on God, nothing can keep you from that clearness of spirit which is life and peace. In that stillness you will know what His will is. This verse from 2 Corinthians 12:9, “We glory in our weakness that the power of Christ may rest upon us.” I am thankful that it is His power that is working through me.

I am reminded of the calling the Lord has given me when he said to “Go Ye”. He used this verse to get my attention, 1 Corinthians 3:12-14 – “Now anyone who builds on that foundation may use gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But there is going to come a time of testing at the judgment day to see what kind of work each builder has done. Everyone's work will be put through the fire to see whether or not it keeps its value. If the work survives the fire, that builder will receive a reward.” I want the work that I have done here to be pleasing to our Lord I don’t want it to amount to wood, hay or straw. Give me the Love that leads the way The Faith that nothing can dismay The Hope no disappointments tire The Passion that'll burn like fire. It is a safe thing to trust Him to fulfill the desires which He creates.

Thank you for your prayers in the work God is doing,

Amy Carmichael

MY FATHER CARES!

From None but the Hungry Heart by Miles J. Stanford

"I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear" (Job 42:5).

Strangford Lock, Northern Ireland

The heart that is hungry to have God's purpose worked out in his life is going to be neither disappointed, nor pampered. When it comes to seeing self for what it is, there can be no pampering; when it comes to seeing the Lord Jesus Christ for who He is, there can be no disappointment.

"Why are the people of God suffering?--that they may be conformed to the image of His Son. Of course, we may not need a world upheaval to do this, but God is going to use all conditions to that end, and, tragically enough, there are multitudes of the Lord's people who do need a world shaking.

"They are so bound up with the externalities of Christianity, with its whole structure and system, that nothing but that which will overthrow, disintegrate, destroy, and raise tremendous questions about the whole business, will bring them to the place where the Spirit of God can begin really to do the work He has come to do in them." -T. A-S.

"Job was a true servant of God; but he needed to learn himself, as we all do. He needed to have the roots of his moral being laid bare in his own sight so that he might really abhor himself, and repent in dust and ashes. And furthermore, he needed a truer and deeper sense of what God was, so that he might trust Him and justify Him under all circumstances." -C.H.M.

"But now mine eye seeth Thee" (Job 42:5).

Northern Ireland