Early Summer 2013

PCS (permanent change of station) season is in full swing here. Most of our endeavors are sparsely attended for now. We have had to say tearful goodbyes. Yet, we are excited about the new people we are meeting here. It seems right now that I am busier than ever. We are mentoring several people and heavily involved in programs at the chapel and our house.

The beginning of June we spent with my daughter (Julie) and her family. All six of us traveled together to Roseburg, Oregon for a visit. After a stop at Crater Lake, the vehicle broke down and we had no cell coverage. Jesse (our son in law) prayed that God would get the glory for this. Ten minutes after we stopped, our former neighbor stopped to help. Coincidence? I think not! Below is Laci, Julie and Dawson waiting on the side of the road.

The trip to Roseburg was so much fun. Jesse had never been there before and now he sees why we love it. Here are a few more pictures from their visit. As you can see by my selection of pictures, it is all about family and friends. The places we visited were nice too.

Buri Family Get Together in Garden Valley

A hike with Sue and Donna

I love my three kids!

Four generation picture with my mother.

A visit with my dad in Prineville.

Sadly, they had to say goodbye after almost two weeks with us. I do plan to go see them in Texas in December because baby #3 is on the way!

The day they left, some of us from PWOC helped a gal clean her house. She had pre eclampsia and her son was born two months premature. She had no time or energy to clean her house. Here is a pic of our crew.

We have also had some fun trips we’ve taken with our group. Last Saturday, we went to Silver City, Idaho. It is an old mining town in the Owyhee Mountains. It is a beautiful setting.

 

The cemetery.

 

Some of our group crossing the creek, baby stroller and all.

We are planning a trip to Yellowstone for our group on Labor Day. More to come!

Late Spring 2013

I love spring in Southern Idaho. I especially love the fragrances wafting from the Russian Olive trees and the sagebrush. The ground squirrels, affectionately known here as whistle pigs are out in abundance. But with spring comes PCS (permanent change of station) season. This year seems to be another Super PCS season. It seems like half of the military folks here are moving on. So, the numbers are down in our programs and events until we get to know people. We should see the numbers pick up again in the fall.

Usually I try to stay out of leadership at PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) so that the younger women can learn to lead. This year with so many of our gals leaving, there was a huge gap. So, I stepped up to be president for this coming year.

This is me with Karla and Amber (the new executive board). Betsy was out of town for this, so there will be four of us. Karla and Amber are excited about the opportunity to serve God and the women in our community.

As always, there is some kind of dress up event for our group. Sarah and Dan decided to invite us to spend their birthday at their house with a hillbilly party. They flew in crawdads from Louisiana for the occasion.

Elisha (pictured below with me) put on a garage sale at our house. The total raised was over $1400 to help with the expenses of our ministry. Lots of folks in the community came together to help and donate. It was great!

 

We had two hikes and a picnic for Memorial Day Weekend. The first hike was up in the Boise National Forest at Little Wilson trail. It was so beautiful.

We then hiked the Bruneau Dunes. Pictures don’t do it justice. It is pretty steep at points and it gets your heart pounding. One gal said her lungs were burning. We love the challenge.

Eric, who had surgery on his back only two weeks previous made it to the top.

 

We have a full, busy summer ahead of us. We love it!

Late Winter/Spring 13

This is the longest I’ve gone without adding something to the blog. I have no good excuses. We are blissfully busy here in Mt. Home, Idaho. Even though we have wonderful colleagues to help us now, we are just as busy as ever! Our ministries here continue going well, but we are soon to lose a LOT of our people to PCS (permanent change of station).

Earlier on in February, I organized a skiing event for Velocity (the young adult ministry) to Soldier Mountain. It was a lot of work but worth it. We had a great time bonding with each other.  Below is a picture of Stephanie and me. Stephanie and husband Chris are going to move to Ramstein, Germany this coming summer. Stephanie and I have been through so much together, I will greatly miss her. Since moving to Mt. Home, I’ve seen Stephanie grow by leaps and bounds in her spiritual walk. She is now a leader of women. To God be the glory.

I got an opportunity in February to visit Jesse, Julie, Dawson and Laci in their new home in San Antonio, Texas. We had so much fun together, that my son in law wanted me to stay longer!

 

We are wrapping up another year of PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel). The Chief of Chaplains of the Army decided to end PWOC International (a board of women overseeing all the local PWOC chapters worldwide). We still meet as chapters but don’t have the conferences and training anymore. I have been chosen to be president this coming year for our local chapter. I do have a heart for this ministry and want to continue to see God work to reach precious military women for Christ. Below is our PWOC group last month. Already, THREE of these girls have moved away.

We spoke at a mission’s conference at Eastridge Baptist Church, in Kent, Washington earlier this month. We got to meet other missionaries, talk about what God is doing in our ministry and be encouraged by others. While there, we got to spend time with Ed’s brother and family and Ed’s folks.

We are pictured above with the Stocktons who were liaisons for us for the mission’s conference. They loved on us well even though Chuck had just found out that his mother passed away.

 

We enjoyed a day off with Ed’s brother and sister in law and his folks in Tacoma (pictured above).

After the conference, we took a week off and traveled around Washington and Northern Idaho.

 

We got refreshed and ready to jump back in to ministry. We came home to a clean home, mowed lawn and lots of love.

On a sad note, we had to put our beloved black cat, Kiki to sleep a few days before we left. Our other cat, Molly is still mourning. She cries and cries.

Christmastime 2012

December was a very busy month here. We attended the usual Christmas tree lighting event on base. We took our folks to see the Living Christmas Tree in Nampa and Handel’s Messiah in Boise. We had a Christmas party for our Wednesday night discipleship group (pictured below).

We got to spend Christmas Eve at the Barnes’ in Payette. It was bittersweet this year because it was the first year without my sweet grandma.

Christmas day we had a crowd at our house. We ate good food, did the motions to the “Twelve Days of Christmas” and opened white elephant gifts. We had some people over who hadn’t been to our house before. I think we made them feel at home.

We have very much enjoyed have Chaplain Schrader as our pastor for the morning service. He preaches faithfully from the Word of God and even gets the children involved. In this picture below, he was explaining to them how we should be so expectant for God to feed us that we should open our mouths heavenward.

 

New Year’s Eve was celebrated 1920’s style. We ate foods popular then, did the Charleston and took lots of pictures. Someone came up with the best idea. We would watch the ball drop in New York City (via television) and celebrate at that time. So we let out cheers of “Happy New Year” at 10 PM Mountain Time.

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.