Dawson’s Accident

On November 3, I received a phone call from my son in law, Jesse. The night before, Dawson (our grandson) had run into the kitchen and grabbed the pyrex measuring cup with boiling water in it down on his head and arm. He was sent to a children’s hospital near Waikiki. I put the word out on two prayer chains. The next day, I prayed that if God wanted me to go be with them to make it very clear. I then got an offer from our home church to pay for the flight. Then Jesse asked me to come. It seemed clear. I was weepy most of the journey there. I got weepy when I got to hug Julie and see Dawson. He was so swollen (he couldn’t open his eyes) that he didn’t look anything like Dawson. We were overwhelmed with prayers and well wishes from folks around the world. We feel so loved. Dawson spent 5 days in the PICU at the hospital. But then, he got discharged. He is healing very well. Below are pictures I took on the Skype camera, three weeks after the accident (after I had already been home a week.) He still has some healing to do, but he looks great!

He was playing “Peek a Boo” with me.

Thanks so much for your prayers!

Fall 11

We have had a wonderful summer and early fall. What beautiful weather!  Today I ate some of the last of our tomatoes we grew in our backyard. The cold weather is finally here. We have kept quite busy. Ed had to work most of September and half of October at the Air National Guard due to an inspection. I’m so glad that is all over with. 

Ministry continues to keep us busy. Ed is active with discipleship in two men’s studies, 2 men’s prayer groups and some individuals that he is mentoring. Our Friday night study is still going well. The number of chapel attenders is dwindling….

Part of military ministry that I HATE is having to constantly say good bye. This particular good bye last week was especially hard. Our accountability partners here, Vance and Nancy Kondon have moved on to their next assignment in Mississippi. Vance is now the new command chief there.

This picture was taken at Vance’s farewell dinner. Most of the top brass of the base made it a point to attend and give him very “honoring” gifts.  They are both very God honoring folks and I already miss them terribly.

At 50 years old, I am the oldest woman at our Protestant Women of the Chapel (PWOC). There is only one other gal there close to my age. Many of the young women there want to be mentored. We went into a partnership with the Southern Baptist Church in town. They have plenty of older women and not as many younger ones.  So I brought in a bunch of our younger gals for their “Apples of Gold” mentoring program.  We are having our final meeting, a banquet this week. I have seen these young gals grow in their walk with God. The Bible study that I’m leading at PWOC seems to go hand in hand with the Apples of Gold. I have about 20 ladies in my class for Elizabeth George’s “A Woman After God’s Own Heart”.  It is all very exciting. We had a PWOC Sunday at chapel. I played my guitar for our praise band. I think we were able to get the word out about PWOC there.

I just returned from my 13th PWOC conference, this time in Seattle, Washington. One of our gals said that this was quite possibly the best weekend of her life. I got to see lots of friends I had known from other PWOCs and bond with my current group. The speakers, worship and workshops were deeply motivating. Stephanie, who I invited and brought with me to PWOC two years ago, was chosen to be the Vice President for the West Region. I was thrilled!

This picture is of our Mt. Home gals at the conference.

Looking ahead, I created a facebook event last night for Thanksgiving at our house. So far, we already have 26 signed up. Yikes!

God bless you all and thanks so much for your prayers!

Beautiful September

I think the best place to be this September is Southern Idaho. The weather has been perfect. I don’t know if you can tell, but Summer is my very favorite time of the year. I’m not ready for it to end…

God has given us wonderful opportunities for one on one mentoring with the guys and the gals at Mountain Home Air Force Base. Some of our group activities have not had great attendance but we seem to feel like the ministry is richer right now.

We had a great turn out for our PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) Kick Off Luau a few weeks ago. I played my ukulele. It was fun and very exciting to see so many ladies excited about our PWOC this year.

We had PWOC Sunday at the chapel and we set up our praise and worship team for that.

Mountain Home AB had an air show. It was a great activity to attend with our folks and get to know them better. Here is a picture of Ed and Perry on the flight line waiting to see the Thunderbirds perform.

I turned 50 this month. Ed had to work the whole weekend but some of my friends here brought me breakfast and took me to the Air Force Appreciation Day parade.

I took this picture with my cell phone of the gang who helped me celebrate.

The next day one of the gals pictured above had a party at Maurice’s clothing shop. Dinner was provided and we got to try on lots of clothes.

Julie and Jesse found out that they are having a girl. I’m so excited! I was hoping to visit them this fall because I was going to help the chaplain’s wife here get to Guam where her husband is deployed. He doesn’t have a place for her and her two little girls to stay yet. So, it may not work. I do plan to go in January when my grand daughter is due to arrive.

Summer Fun

Ed and I were invited to be the missionaries at junior boy’s camp at Warm Lake Camp again this year. I stayed on an extra week as the missionary for the junior girls.  We always love going there. It was where I asked Jesus to be my savior when I was a young camper. This year, two of our airmen (Aaron and Andrew) joined us to be counselors there.  They shared their testimonies one night and answered questions about military life. It went very well. Also, one of our kids (Devyn) from our chapel (his dad is currently deployed) was able to join us as a camper. Someone from the Payette church paid his way.  His mother was very grateful for that opportunity and says that he learned a lot about defending his faith (he also had lots of fun).

Aaron and Andrew donning their Warm Lake Camp hats.

Devyn

Most of the campers and staff

Rendezvous at Smash Burger

After boy’s camp, we drove down to Meridian and had a rendezvous with Sharlene and Meleeya at Smash Burger. The girls were there to join me at camp. Sharlene’s husband is currently deployed. I thought it would be good for her to be there. I wanted the girls at camp to have a face to connect with about who we work with at the base. Meleeya is a first grader and became the darling of the camp. When it came time to leave camp, Meleeya cried huge crocodile tears because she loved those girls so much.

The girls at camp were taught to be godly. I did my Titus 2 meal workshop, talked about Jesse Miller (the founder of Cadence International), played my guitar and dressed up like Eliza Spalding, and other stuff. Sharlene shared her testimony, helped me with many things and played the guitar. We saw God orchestrate some amazing things so that Sharlene could be at camp and help me. I think God was honored. I loved getting to know the girls, the junior counselors and counselors and the rest of the staff.

Me with some of the counseling staff: Alice, Tyara, Hannah and Abbie.

One of the groups after the Titus 2 meal workshop

Eliza Spalding visited Warm Lake Camp

This is my picture of the picture of the whole group. Sharlene, Meleeya and I are at the lower right.

We jumped back into ministry in Mt. Home. Ed had a men’s retreat to work on. It went very well. The guys went fishing and boating. They did lots of other men stuff. While the guys were gone, some of us wives went to Silver City, Idaho.  It is so beautiful and rich with history. The long drive into the Owyhee Mountains made for a great time of conversation. One of our gals particularly is weighed down with many cares. I think she came away from that trip encouraged. The following is a picture of a few of us at the beautiful cemetery.

Summer is slow in ministry sometimes, but we have had enough to keep us busy. We had great chapel services yesterday with the ACC chaplain here for a visit. Wow! Can that guy preach! It was great!

At Velocity last night, Ed, Aaron and Norm (also known as Dan) performed a Hall and Oates themed skit.  I think everybody there enjoyed it.

Who wouldn’t love those faces?

Wild West Adventures

I love Summer! We have had a beautiful summer here in Southern Idaho, not too hot, not too cold.

I had surgery at the beginning of June and that plus the recovery went very well. I was well enough three weeks after the surgery to go with our group to Frontier Days in Idaho City.  There were about 15 (?) of us that went. Most of us dressed up in our old west clothes. People there thought that was so cool and many asked where we were from. That helped because one of our guys lost his wallet. It was found and returned because the wallet had a military ID card and a gal remembered that our group of dressed up people were connected with the military. The wallet was discovered just after Ed and several of the guys stopped to pray about it. Everyone seemed to have a great time.

I just love this picture (above) of Ed, Andrew, Aaron and Nathan.

Ed and I are leaving in a few days for junior boy’s camp at Warm Lake again. Andrew and Aaron will be joining us this time. Please pray for that!

For 4th of July we had a big get together on base. The event was advertised on the base face book page. Last year, we had about 20 people. This year we had around 175 – 200 people. Wow! Below is a picture of Sharlene and me cleaning up afterward.

Sharlene and her daughter, Meleeya are going to help me at junior girl’s camp right after the boy’s camp. Her husband is deployed right now.

This past week we had our supervisors, Bill and Syliva Sawyer visit us.  They came to encourage us and they accomplished that task.

We took them to Shoshone Falls in Twin Falls, Idaho. We also visited Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) in Nampa.

We are encouraged. We see such great depth in many of our airmen and spouses. Bill and Sylvia marveled at that. To God be the glory!

Late Spring 2011

Two days after we got back from Hawaii, I went to the PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) retreat in Cascade, Idaho. I had very little to do with running the retreat this time (except for booking the place). Most of the work was done by gals in their 20’s. I was very proud of them. We all had a fabulous time and we achieved our goal (getting to know each other better). I’m excited to see these gals grow in their faith with a passion to serve GOD wholeheartedly.

Shortly after this, our gals threw a baby shower for Birthright in Boise.  We filled several large vehicles full of gifts for young moms and their babies. The Birthright director was thrilled! The very next week we had our end of year program, a tea party.  That was my last official day as president of this group. We don’t have a new president. Please pray for this need.

Here I am with Madeline Carollo. Her daddy is a chaplain here in Mt. Home.

We found out around this time that Ed’s dear Aunt Trudy had passed away. Her only child, Dan, who was my age had passed away in 1990 of malaria. We all loved Aunt Trudy. She loved Jesus and that was very clear by testimonies of her people shared at her memorial service. That was the second memorial service we went to that day. Our neighbor from Cleveland Rapids Road in Roseburg (Helen Lehne) also had passed away. She also loved Jesus. It was great to hear how she impacted the lives of so many.

We got to spend time with family while in Roseburg, especially Greg.  It was so nice to be with him. Below is a picture of him with his two grandmothers at Aunt Trudy’s service.

The evening we got back from Roseburg, we had four guys over at our house hanging out and chatting for awhile. I was so tired! But I was also honored that these guys would want to hang out with us. Ed has been spending lots of quality time with these and other guys. Here is a photo they sent to facebook by phone from one of those times.

Velocity (the young adult ministry on base) is now participating in the intramural softball league on base. This past week was their first game. Here they are praying before the game.

 Also last week, the base chapel put on their Vacation Bible School.  We did Group’s Pandemania. I usually help out with registration but a few months ago I didn’t feel led to do that. I opted to help Chelsea with the opening and closing ceremonies. I wanted to get to know Chelsea better. It worked out because I ended up having to have surgery the Friday before. I couldn’t have physically handled any other task. The kids (many of them unchurched) LOVED this VBS.

We had many obstacles to deal with including the loss of half of the chapel parking lot and all of the adjoining parking lot due to security changes and construction projects. On Wednesday, we had a base exercise which put the chapel into lockdown. The outdoor games had to come indoors …. in the hallway.  When they let our kids and families leave, we saw airmen dressed up in their gas masks and weapons on the street. The kids didn’t seem to notice since they are all used to that stuff.  One of our little ones pointed to one of the airmen and said “Daddy!”.  I so appreciate our military and what they and their families sacrifice.

Spring 2011

This Spring we were blessed to have an early celebration of our 25th anniversary (June 28 is the actual date). With gifts from friends and family and some freebies (free air fare, free motel stays, gift cards, car use, etc.) we were able to travel to Hawaii for two weeks.  We got to stay on the Big Island for 3 nights at military lodging on the volcano crater’s edge and explore a good portion of the island.

This is the caldera near twilight.

We went snorkeling, enjoyed the yummy foods unique to the island, laid on the beach, hiked near water falls and lava tubes, perused historic sites and ventured into a valley accessible by 4 wheel drive vehicles. This next picture is of us in Wai pio Valley.

We spent the rest of our time on Oahu with the Cornell family. While there we got to visit the Cadence hospitality house run by the Cassidy family. We did some more hiking (once with Elba). We enjoyed more yummy Hawaiian food. We got to see Jesse (our son in law) save someone’s life. Yep, you read that right. Jesse even got a great write up about it on the Air Force web site.

It was wonderful to see our family and I loved having grandma time with Dawson. I got to ride in the back seat with him lots. He started playing his version of “peek a boo” by grabbing my hand and hiding his eyes. I would say…”Where’s Dawson?

He would then push my hand away and smile when I would say “there’s Dawson!”

Another highlight was attending the Easter Sunrise service on board the USS Missouri in Pearl Harbor.

We are grateful to God and to some of you for our wonderful trip. We are blessed to celebrate 25 years of marriage.

The following pics are of the Ali’i tour on Oahu.

We are very blessed.

We Love Our Guys!

Someone asked us what our weekly schedule is like. It is hard to answer sometimes. We do have things that are strictly scheduled and then we try to have flexibility in our schedule to accommodate the military schedules. Today was such a day in that we were glad to have some flexibility. Andrew had to work over the weekend and had today off. We invited him over for some soup. Soon others wanted to join him too. I went to the pantry and threw another soup concoction on the stove. Andrew told me last night that we are like parents to him and he loves coming out to our house. He has grown tremendously since coming to Mountain Home. You all are a part of that. Thanks so much for your encouragement, prayers and support!

Winter’s End…?

This has been a sad time for us as we have had to say goodbye to a few people.  We had to say goodbye on this earth to Harley Fitch. We met Harley and his wife Cathie at our home church in Roseburg. They have supported us since the beginning of our time as missionaries to the military. They had recently moved to the Boise area to get medical help. We were able to attend the memorial service. The service was a tribute to Harley and his love of missions. He was serving God with his passion until the very end.

 

This display was a nice tribute to Harley’s life.

The second good bye was to Chaplain Anderson and his family. They moved just last week to North Carolina. They were very supportive of us and Richard Anderson became one of Ed’s dearest friends here. The chapel had a gathering to honor him and it was one of the largest crowds I’ve ever seen at the chapel. He touched so many lives here in Mt. Home. He counseled Jesse and Julie and performed their wedding ceremony.

Here he is praying with some of us at PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) as his last act as our advisor.

Chaplain Anderson’s very last act as a chaplain here was to perform the wedding for Amber and Caleb Zody. Amber and Caleb met at Velocity after both had been through traumatizing things. We have seen both grow immensely in their walks with God through the ministry of the chapel. It has been so exciting to see. We got to meet Caleb’s parents and they were so grateful for Ed’s input into Caleb’s life. It was our honor to share in their joy at their wedding.

Velocity is still going strong. Just this last week some of us from Velocity went skiing together at Bogus Basin. It was a great time of developing relationships with some folks who are open to the Gospel. I had an especially great time hanging out with Michelle. She likes to ski the challenging slopes and I like the green ones. I’ve only skied once since before my children were born so I’m not that good.

While I was having fun skiing, poor Ed was busy at the Air Guard.

Our Friday nights at the house are still going well and we are quite busy with ministry on base. We are having troubles getting people to step up and commit themselves to take on responsibilities. So please pray that God will work on the hearts of those here to do so.

Christmas and the New Year

Happy New Year Dear Ones!

We had a wonderful Christmas here with 45 (?) folks. We had 53 RSVP’s and we were wondering where everyone would go. It worked out beautifully. The food was plentiful and we had so much fun. Your prayers were so appreciated.

We did a white elephant gift exchange and the traditional 12 days of Christmas with hand motions.

Our wonderful supervisors with Cadence, Paul and Beryl Metko came to visit us as their last assignment as our supervisors. Our wing chaplain, Dan Crawford and his wife Cheryl invited us to their home to meet the Metkos. It was great fellowship. We are very blessed to know and work with both couples.

God has been gracious to me and has allowed me to go visit Julie and Dawson in Hawaii while Jesse is deployed.

I got to spend 16 (mostly) glorious days there. Two days the rain poured so much we stayed home. Julie was sick for two days, Dawson for two more and I was sick for a day. Here is a photo of Dawson when he was sick.

I got to see some friends and enjoy the island.

We had lunch with Julie McCool at the Hale Koa in Waikiki.

I hiked Diamond Head with Elba Adams.

The Klein family took me to the beach.

I saw more friends and sadly didn’t take good pictures of them. The highlight of the trip though, was spending time with Julie and Dawson. I so love being Dawson’s grandma!

I loved the warmth of Hawaii, but it was great to get back home to my hubby. I missed him. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to visit.

Two days after I got back we visited Bible Baptist Church in Payette. We brought Aaron with us. BBC has been a wonderful supporting church for us. We always feel so special and loved when we visit.

Here is Pastor Rob, Ed and Aaron. Ed, Aaron and I shared with the church what is going on here at Mt. Home AFB. I always love going there.