April 2012

April 2012 has been one of the longest months of my life. Ed and I were privileged to visit our family in Hawaii for our vacation (free airfare and free room/board). We got to see some dear, old friends and lounge on the beach. During our time there, life altering things were happening back at home (a miscarriage, three births, sudden deployments, sudden moves, etc.) Four days into our vacation, my dear grandmother, Lois Page had a stroke.  Hospital staff seemed to think she would recover. Four days after that, she became unresponsive. I was wondering if I should reschedule my flight back to be with her. I asked for prayer on this. She passed away only hours after this. She loved God and so wanted to go to Heaven. She got her wish. Those of us left behind have a huge hole in our hearts.  I loved her so much. She sacrificed so much for me because she helped to raise me. She was my example of a what a godly woman looks like. I hope I can carry on her legacy.  God blessed us in that less than three weeks before she died, we had to take a trip to Ontario (where she lived) for business. We were busy and weren’t happy about the business we had to do but we took the opportunity of being in Ontario to take Grandma out to lunch. I took a picture of her and Ed.

Our family was so wonderful during all of this. They scheduled the memorial and graveside service so that I didn’t have to change my flight reservations.  I very much enjoyed seeing family members I hadn’t seen in a while.  I had to miss our PWOC retreat (I was on the committee) but the gals at PWOC gave me “permission” to not worry and enjoy being with my family.

This picture (above) is of her seven grandchildren.

The day after I got back from the memorial service, we had a baby dedication and a prayer time for FOUR of our guys deploying the first few weeks of May. The baby being dedicated is the child of one of those deploying.  Two of those deploying had met my grandma and she had been praying for them.  I had the thought, “I’d better tell Grandma Aaron and Dan are deploying”. I then realized that she was gone…..

Here are Caleb and Amber dedicating their baby girl, Rowan -

 

Here are four of our guys being prayed over before deployment:

We had an amazing time in Hawaii visiting old friends, Cadence colleagues and family.

These are all friends from our Ft. Lewis days. 1) Al and Liz Hernandez. (2) Wes and Johnena Drake. (3) Skip and Michelle Crump.

The last Sunday we were there, we got to hear Chaplain Don Eubank (from our Ft. Lewis days) preach at Ft. DeRussy chapel near Waikiki beach. We were joined by Julie’s family and Dave & Dee Bolin (also dear friends of ours from Ft. Lewis days). Chaplain Don, with his wife and daughter, took us out to brunch after the service. What a treat that was!

There are so many more pictures of people and places but I have to get going on Friday night dinner! I posted lots of photos on facebook.

Our last night in Hawaii, Jesse and Julie made a fantastic meal which we enjoyed in their back yard.

 

Passover Seder

This past week, we partnered with Chaplain Carollo and put on a passover seder at our house.  It was a lot of work but so worth it. I think everyone there learned something and enjoyed it. I saved all of the documentation,  made notes, included pictures and put them in a file for future use.

March 2012

Our Friday night group is bonding in several different ways. We had a serious prayer session with a very troubled guest on the 10th that lasted for hours. The next week, our group had fun playing games.

 

The last Friday of the month, we will host a Passover Seder at our house.

Ed continues to help with the drama ministry at Velocity (The young adult service at the chapel). This past Sunday, he and two others put on a sketch about praying and giving our requests to God.

Velocity  has some fun events coming up like the SuperHero Dodgeball:

We are also teaming up with our Navigator Associates (Mike and Amy Coleman) doing discipleship training for the leaders at Velocity. We meet at our house on Wednesday nights for that. The hope is to train our current leaders to train others and have them train others and so on and so on.

The men’s ministry here is doing well. Young men are digging into God’s word with such enthusiasm! It is hard to keep consistent in a military men’s ministry with deployments, training, shift work, etc. This past Monday night, the guys from the men’s study decided to eat out.  Ed took the following picture of the group.

Thanks so much for your prayers and encouragement. It is an awesome privilege to minister to these precious people.

Early 2012

While I was away welcoming our precious grandaughter into the world, Ed was busy with many events back home in Idaho. Our group had a superbowl party, a luau and a ministry trip to the Boise Rescue Mission. Here is a picture of that group.

They helped with many projects like sorting clothes and other “grunt” work.

We have several new folks here who seem so eager to serve. We see God moving in extraordinary ways and are excited about the possibilities.

Our Friday nights are going so well that I’m thinking we may be outgrowing our house. Our hospitality house is not as large as most of our colleagues. But of course, our military installation here also isn’t all that large. Here are recent pics of our Friday night group.

We are especially excited about a new couple who are in the front right of the above picture (Mike and Amy). Mike is active duty Air Force. He and Amy are Navigator Associates. We worked with full time Navs at Fort Lewis and loved it. We are so excited to have our very own “Navs”.

Ed spends a ton of time in discipleship/mentoring at least 10 guys here. Mike is starting to help with this.

The two of us meet with a couple every week to help with their marriage. He will be deploying soon.

I’m still active with the Protestant Women of the Chapel (PWOC). I’m so impressed with our young women who are stepping up to leadership because there are not enough older women to help. These women are growing in their walk with God. It is so exciting to see. The picture below is of a recent board meeting.

Koko Crater Hike

Elba and I were crazy enough to try this hike which was the most challenging of my life!

At the top!

This is the view down the train tracks from the top (over 1000 tracks and quite steep)!

Laci Melissa Cornell

Announcing the birth of our first granddaughter, Laci Melissa Cornell to Jesse, Julie and Dawson Cornell.

7 lbs 4.7 oz – 19” long – January 24 around 5:30 AM in Honolulu, Hawaii

More to Follow……

Christmas Season 2011

I got a new cell phone that supposedly takes great pictures, I unfortunately haven’t figured it out well yet. So, most of my pictures that I took didn’t turn out well. This blog installment will be mostly words. :(

The Christmas season has been quite busy here at En Gedi Hospitality House.  We had a full house for Thanksgiving. We  sent out an announcement via facebook and got so many RSVPs that I was fearful we would get too full. We stopped inviting people and discouraged some from inviting others. That was terrible. I would like to have a bigger house, Ed is content with the size as it is. Lots of folks who came out said that being at our house was the next best thing to being with their own families far away.

Christmas eve we got to be with my side of the family in Payette, Idaho.  I always treasure that time with such dear people.

Christmas day, we had about 25 here for dinner. It was an extremely busy day it being a Sunday. Those who attended seemed to enjoy it as we did our traditional Twelve Days of Christmas with motions, team Pictionary, and white elephant gift exchange.

We went to Roseburg after that and spent 6 days with friends and family there.

It was nice to spend time with my brother Jerry, his wife Denise and my mom. We also got to spend lots of time with the Buris.  Of course, the highlight was getting together with Greg.

Dawson continues to improve. I get to leave next week to visit him and the rest of his family. His baby sister is due to arrive soon. This is a Skype picture of him pretending  Julie’s headband is sunglasses.