Late Fall 2012

Eric and Janet Thimell are back from their fundraising trip and are living here full time now. They still need to raise lots more. Please pray for them. Right after they got back here, Janet and I went with about 15 other gals from our PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) to the PWOC International conference in Nashville, Tennessee. There were about 1400 women in attendance and our venue was The Gaylord Opryland Resort. Wow! What a beautiful place. I always love going because I get to see people that I have worked with in the past at other locations. I got to see lots of dear ladies.  Here is a picture of our group from Mt. Home. It is amazing this many got to go. We usually have four at the most.

Shortly after our conference, the men had a retreat. Around 27 men attended at Trinity Pines in Cascade, Idaho. Again, this is an amazing number.  According to the retreat coordinator, Mike Coleman, the retreat was “revivalesque”. Lives were changed for eternity there. Here is a picture of that group.

We had a full house for Thanksgiving. What is nice this year is that I have so much help for these special occasions and for Friday nights. Janet Thimell has made my life so much easier with her help in cooking. Beth Reynolds (we are only 6 days apart in age) and husband Jim have joined us this fall. Beth helps a lot too.  Amy and Mike Coleman are also such great teammates. The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Janet and I hosted a Christmas Coffee for some of our gals.  Janet prepared all of the food, I made bubble teas and decorated and we invited two precious young gals to help with teaching a craft and doing a devotion. All in all, I think it was a success. A tradition may have been started. Here is the group from that.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Early Fall 2012

Our anticipated pirate party “Treasure Quest” happened on one of the hottest September days I remember here. A bunch of us gathered at Bruneau Dunes State Park. We all dressed up as pirates, ate pirate food (squid [hot dogs skewered with spaghetti noodles], “parrot legs”, grog, and lots more) and hunted for treasure. It was a LOT of work for Ed and his sidekick Andrew. Below is a picture of our Navigator/Cadence team at the party.

We have had such a lovely early autumn here, we were able to eat outside occasionally.

I was thrilled to help Amber welcome back her husband Caleb from deployment. He deployed within weeks after his baby girl was born.

We love Caleb. It so wonderful to have him back.

We were soon to be saddened to say good bye to Shane. Shane has been with us pretty much since we got to Mountain Home. Shane discharged from the Air Force. He may come back to visit periodically since his girlfriend lives near by. :) Below is the last Friday night Shane was with us. He is the loveable red haired guy in the middle.

Thanks to the leadership of our Navigator partners, Mike and Amy Coleman, we are going out quarterly for a “Half Day of Prayer”. The guys go on Saturday and the gals go on Sunday. Below is a picture of the gals who went. This is certainly time well spent.

Our prayers have been answered in such a marvelous way with our new chaplain, Lance Schrader. He and his wife Karla have only been here for a few weeks but our hearts are knit with theirs. Chaplain Schrader preached for the first time yesterday and let me just say that he seems to love God and stand on His word. It is so very exciting! Pictured below is our beloved Chaplain Montoya with the Schraders.

This past weekend, the chapel and Stonecroft ministries put together a “Heart Event for Families” at the club on base. Chaplain Montoya invited Rachel Faulkner to be the lady speaker. We also had Brian Fleming as the men’s speaker (blownupguy.com). Rachel is a good friend of my good friend, Katy Henshaw. Rachel is twice widowed and has a phenomenal testimony of Jesus’ love and comfort. She also spoke/sang at both chapel services. Her rendition of “Give Me Jesus” will stay with me for a long time.  It was a treat for Ed and I to get to go eat at Boise Fry Company with Rachel, Brian, Chaplain Montoya and his wife Tina. Below is a picture of Rachel and me at BFC.

 

End of Summer

Ministering in the military has many joys and sorrows. One of these sorrows is frequent deployments. Since we’ve known Chris, he has deployed twice (just in the past two years). One of the joys is getting to welcome these precious ones back from deployment. We joined his wife, Stephanie and daughter, Hailey a few weeks ago to see him return to Idaho.

Some other joys….(1) the Thimells are here and are already jumping in to ministry. They will be taking time later on this month and the next month for partnership development (raising support).  (2) PWOC is starting up again for the Fall. We had our Kick Off last week and about half of the gals there were new to our PWOC.

(3) Babies, lots of babies!  My dear Sharlene, gave birth two weeks ago to sweet little Joshua. I “helped” her by holding him a lot yesterday.

(4) Fellowship opportunities with other co-workers/believers. Last weekend, we joined forces with Fred and Diane Stock who run a hospitality house for Fairchild AFB in Spokane, WA. We each brought a group to NE Oregon (Wallowa Lake State Park) for a camping trip. It was a great time for everyone. We bonded as a group. We had perfect weather (during the day). We had a great camp site and gorgeous scenery. The only drawback was that it was VERY cold at night.  One family had to leave a day early because it was just too cold at night.  Still, that family is glad they came and would do it again (they would just be more prepared for the cold).

This (above) was the view from our campsite.

We are planning another trip with the Stocks next year.  We are grateful to God for all of these things. We have a very busy, next few months. The next blog should chronicle our Pirate Party at the Dunes. Stay tuned.

Blessed Summer

One July Sunday, several of us gals from the base drove up to Anderson Dam and had a morning of prayer. We each went our separate ways and spent time with God. It was so wonderful. We all were very blessed by it and hope to do it again in the fall.

Julie, Dawson and Laci arrived in the middle of July to spend a month here. Jesse stayed behind in Hawaii for a few weeks to finish their moving process for their next assignment in San Antonio, TX. We made a trip to Roseburg, Oregon to speak at our sending church and to visit family.

I love it when my family is together, but we are missing Jesse here.

Four generations (my mom, me, Julie and Laci)

Laci and Dawson with their Buri great grandparents

Laci and her Page great grandparents

While we were gone, Eric and Janet Thimell ran the house. They fixed things and cleaned. They let us borrow their car for our trip to Roseburg. Janet made the food for our Friday night dinner. We were so blessed! We are excited they will be moving here Labor Day Weekend! Right after we got back to Idaho, Ed and I went to Burley, Idaho for a mission’s conference at Burley’s First Baptist Church. We stayed with Jerry and Ouanda Walton. What great hosts!

We jumped into VBS at the base chapel after this. Julie was the unsung hero spending the entire week in the nursery. Stephanie and I were the “celebration leaders” for our week in Babylon learning about Daniel. We had around 80 children.

When Jesse was finished in Hawaii, he flew to Florida to attend the Air Force Sergeants Association (AFSA) conference. Previously he was selected as the nominee from District 14 (includes Hawaii, Japan, Guam, Korea, Washington, Alaska…) to compete for Airman of the Year for the entire Air Force. Well, JESSE WON! Below he is pictured with the Secretary of the Air Force. This is a HUGE deal and we are so proud of Jesse!

After the conference, Jesse flew to Boise and joined us for a few days.

We all got to visit with Aunt Myrna and Uncle Drexell Barnes and attend our supporting church there (Bible Baptist of Payette, ID)

Love, love, love these babies!

Love, love, love my family!  Jesse, Julie and children are in Texas now searching for a house. It was a wonderful month and I’m tired :)

Fireworks and Fires

It is summertime and we are experiencing hot temps here. Today it is supposed to get up to 106 F here. I’m so thankful for air conditioning! For our 4th of July celebration, we all went to the Coleman’s house. They just moved near the golf course where the fire works were shot from. Initially, Amy (Coleman) and I were thinking maybe 20 people would come. We ended up having 69! We had some new folks come who now are also joining our regular activities. I didn’t take very many pictures that day. I like this one I took with my cell phone. This little guy was told he couldn’t play with these balls. They were for the adults to play with.

A few days ago our town had a big scare. It has been (and continues to be) tinder dry here. Lightning struck several miles east of Mt. Home. The flames traveled quickly toward Mt. Home. Interstate 84 was closed as the fire had leaped to the other side. There is a burn scar right next to the businesses on the edge of town. Amazingly, no buildings were destroyed. It is still smoky here and our patio is littered with ash and dust.

In this pic, I am on the south side of town and the smoke is coming from the north/ northeast side of town.

 

   The sun looks more red and brilliant shrouded in smoke.

May/June 2012

Lots has happened since I last wrote. At the house, we had sold our fifth wheel and got a storage shed in it’s place. We have painted that and the pergola on our patio. We are waiting for a delivery of polycarbonate corrugated roofing for the pergola. Then, maybe, perhaps, hopefully, we will be done with major projects. We will need to paint the house again soon. I guess you are never really done with projects for your home. Our cherry trees are producing gobs of delicious fruit right now and no time to pick them and preserve them.

Last month we had an event for Velocity called “Superhero Dodgeball”. We all dressed up in our own super hero personas, played dodgeball, went out to eat at Grinde’s and went to the Avenger’s movie (all while dressed up).

Two years ago, Shannon Carollo and I made it our goal to hike the 6 mile trail through the Bruneau Dunes State Park. Just hiking to the top of one of the tall dunes is exhausting, to hike the whole six miles is much more exhausting. Michelle wanted to join us too. So, right before Shannon and husband Mike moved to Japan, we hiked that 6 mile trail. We were all very sore the next day, but we did it!

I got to attend a Beth Moore conference in Boise with around 25 other gals from the base. Ed helped plan and attended a men’s retreat with around a dozen guys from the base.

We had a crowd here for a Memorial Day weekend get together. It was raining so everyone packed into our house. Eric and Janet Thimell (missionaries with Cadence) are looking into joining us here. They came up that weekend. We sure hope they do get to come back and stay. The third picture below is us with the Thimells.

Sadly, as I mentioned before, it was time to say good bye to Chaplain Mike and his dear wife Shannon. They just moved to Japan. We had a sendoff for them with the theme of Godzilla/Sumo. We are grateful to God for letting us have this dear couple here for two years.

We had the privilege to visit Bible Baptist Church in Payette, Idaho. They have been very supportive of us since we joined Cadence. We brought the Coleman family with us so they could speak about the exciting things happening on the base.

Here we are pictured with the Colemans and the Zaklans (the pastor).

Our summer looks to be very busy. Highlights for us will be to see our children and grandchildren. I will try to do better and keep the blog updated more frequently.