God is so Close to our Hearts

This morning as I was having my quiet time with God.  I came to Him with a million frustrations.  I poured out my heart.  My weariness with certain things.  I told Him I just needed to feel Him.  Right here in my room.  And God is so amazing.  He is right there.  He is listening.  He understands whatever we have to dump on Him.  I put in my earplugs and looked for a worship song I have never heard before.  God has always ministered to me through music.  And the song that came up...spoke to me as if it was written directly to what I had just poured out to Him.

I just felt that I was to share this to encourage someone.  We, as believers, are not always on the mountain top.  Sometimes we are in the valley and don't know how to get out.  But I challenge you...are you really spending time with the Lord?  Because when we truly get into His presence, we are changed.  Even if our circumstances don't change, our view of those circumstances will.

When God Writes Your Story

In a couple weeks, Lee and I will celebrate 25 years of marriage.

Life is crazy, guys.

When I was young, I had it all planned out.  What my life would look like.

There are so many things that I had not ever dreamed of.  There are so many things that we have walked through in these years that I never could have expected.

But its a GOOD life.

If we had not been obedient to God's call to adopt, we would have an empty nest now.  Some days that seems like it would be nice:)  LOL.  But I think I would be lonely and not ready to be kid-free.

I think over the years, the churches we have pastored, people that have been in our life.  People whose lives have been affected because of our obedience to plant churches and reach the unchurched.   Our lives are a ripple effect.  We will never know how our obedience to the Lord caused ripples in the kingdom...

But obedience has always come with a price.

Obedience is better than sacrifice...but obedience often requires sacrifice.

Serving often requires a sacrifice.

But obedience also results in so many blessings.  Blessings that cannot be contained.

Yesterday, a friend said how I have changed the lives and future of my adopted girls.   But, oh, how they have changed me too.  Changed my future.  Changed my views on things.  Deepened my belief in God and His healing power.  I am not the same person I was ten years ago before I made this journey into raising children I did not give birth to.  They have taught me so much about what love really is.  What love and family really means.

I also never would have thought I would be celebrating 25 years of marriage in Belize.  Some friends in the church are throwing a party for us.  It will be different than a party in an air conditioned church building.  It will be better.  We will have it at a friend's restaurant...outside.   We will probably watch the sunset at the party.  The kids will run around in the yard, all good friends.  I will probably sweat a little, but so will everyone else:)  I will enjoy fresh Belizean fruits and Lee will enjoy yummy homemade desserts.  No running to Kroger to pick something up here.

I miss many of our American comforts, but in almost seven years, I have also gotten accustomed to so many beautiful ways of the Belizean people.  I feel like things are just more special and appreciated here.   Because things take more effort.

Since I have been home, I have recovered so well.  I have been pretty low key.  The nights have been cool.  The days haven't been too bad on the scale of sweat:)   God is good and definitely my healer.

Surgery Again?

You can just be going along and out of nowhere, life happens.

About a month ago, we had just returned home from the states.   It was a busy time for me.  Moving things around as all the girls moved rooms.  Going through things Tori left behind.  Going through clothes we had all outgrown or didn't need any longer.  It was a very busy time.  Cleaning the house and restocking groceries.

I had gone to my Net Thursday night.  Just getting back into the routine.

Friday morning, I woke up around 2 or 3 with pain.  I walked.  Drank tea.  Prayed for the pain to pass.  But it kept getting worse.  I couldn't lie down and rest.  Finally, around 5, I woke up Lee and told him I was worried something was really wrong.  Such intense pain in my side...that just wouldn't go away.

After talking to my mom, we began a very difficult journey just to get a sonogram and some pain meds.  We were unable to get a good sonogram until after 11am.  So all of the hours between 3 and 12 were some of the hardest I have been through in a long time.   I repeatedly threw up and the pain would just not budge, even with two shots of pain meds.  I have never cried out to the Lord so much.  Yet, I begged Him for just some relief.  At one point, I felt the Lord tell me, "There's healing in the water."  This is Biblical, but also from one of my favorite songs.  So, I filled the tub and got about 20 minutes of relief.  It was short in the span of time, but I was thankful.  Because God is compassionate and merciful.

Finally, at noon, after finding a stone in the duct of my gall bladder (which is why it was so painful), Lee took me to a brand new clinic here in Belmopan.  The Doctor I am familiar with, and she was so compassionate.  I was so weak that I literally collapsed on the bed, no longer having the strength to stand.  She gave me some heavy pain meds, and antibiotic and fluids.  I was finally able to sleep.  I slept from noon until about 6 the next morning.  I woke a few times but it was a very good rest.  I was thankful Lee was able to stay in the other bed in the room, so that I wasn't alone.

It was decided that the best thing was for me to fly home to Houston.  My family is there, so they could help take care of me and we have insurance there.

The Lord was in that decision.

I arrived at my parents around 9 pm on Saturday and set up a surgeon for Sunday morning.  But by midnight, the pain had "shifted" to my lower abdomen and I began running a fever.  I had a hard time walking, but felt I needed to tell my parents to go ahead and take me to the hospital.

After about 8 hours and many, many tests, it was discovered that I had an even more serious problem with one of my ovaries.  It was the Lord that I was in a place where they would find this.  The surgeon was able to take care of both things at the same time.

My parents took excellent care of me and I healed pretty quickly.   Since I have been home, my girls have been so great helping with things around the house, just happy for mom to be back home.


In everything, I always try to understand, WHY?

I am thankful and blessed that I was able to go for excellent medical care in Houston.  But I am also thankful for what the doctor here in Belmopan did for me.   I am mostly grateful for her and her nurses, who were full of compassion.  I am grateful for family that serves us.  My parents in taking care of me.  Wayne and Jodie picking me up from the airport and bringing my older kids for the surgery.  To see their faces brought me such peace.  Just having people around me.  And the way people here in Belize served my husband and girls with meals.  It meant more than I could ever say.

One thing that I did not know what how my diet would have to change without a gall bladder.

But can I tell you?  I feel better than I have in years!!!

I eat very low fat, no caffeine (yes, I have not had a coke in a month), little dairy.

But I am surviving.   Thriving.  I have so much energy.  I sleep so great now.  I walk with the girls and that has also given me energy.  I rarely have headaches now.  I could go on and on.  I just feel so great.  It is amazing how your diet actually does affect you!


Please continue to pray for our family.  We are in the final time of waiting for our Belizean citizenship.  We are also in the end stages of adoption of two of our girls.  We pray for these things every day.  Sometimes the waiting is so hard.  When there literally is nothing we can do, but trust the Lord.  But it is in those times, that He gets to show off, right?

Maybe you are waiting for something.

I love this song because in the waiting, He is There!!!


Take Courage

Family Photos

We have been so blessed to have amazing photographers in our lives.  I love photos.  I love to look back at how the kids have changed, grown.  I love the memories.  Taking the photos requires a lot of patience, though.  And this year, getting seven people to cooperate, Alice Salinas deserves a medal.

I wanted to share a few of the photos.

Our family doesn't necessarily look like everyone else's family...but I think our family is beautiful!!!

Leaving Tori for College

Three years ago, we took Josh to college.  Thankfully  my parents came and drove me back to Houston.  I could not have done it.  Josh has thrived and we are so proud of him.  But I still miss him being here.  When he arrived home from his mission trip to India, he was sick, and I was glad that Lee and I were there to take him to the doctor.  Because even when your child is grown, they are still your baby.  The three weeks we had together as a family were such a blessing to me.  Josh being with all of the girls...just brought so much joy and laughter.  We were complete for those weeks.

But then we came back to Katy, and it was time to pack up and come back to Belize.  Monday night, there were many tears as we spent time in our room with all five of our kids.  Speaking words of encouragement, but also sadness, as Tori would not return with us.  But knowing that growing up is part of having a child.  Yes, we know that they cannot live with us forever.  But the pain of missionary life is that I have to leave her several months early so that she can learn to drive in America.  The pain that I can't just drive and see her when I miss her...or if she misses me.  But I am thankful that I will get to go in August to take her to college.  And that Wayne and Jodie will be there to drive me back to Houston:)  I am so thankful for a brother and sister in law that have taken in my two oldest children.  That they are working with her to drive, help her find a job, be there for her when it is hard.

One thing of living on the mission field, is that it has taught me to treasure time with people.  With friends.  With family.  With my children.  Because time is so precious and goes so fast.

What God is Speaking to Me

The trip home to Texas was awesome.  Having my whole family together for Convention and the trip to Washington, D.C., was an incredible blessing to this mama's heart.

One theme that stood out to me from a lot of the speakers was that God asks us to the craziest things.  Things that people around us quite often don't understand.  When we go back to Katy, I often feel that people still wonder how we could have left...such an awesome church and community and being so close to all of our family.  But obedience to God sometimes means giving up those comforts to pour into people you would never meet in your community.  That doesn't mean our obedience to what God has called us to is easy.  Or that Lee and I are "saints".  It is a battle I often have to fight.  Even getting on the plane to come back.  It would be so much easier for me to just stay in Texas.  Leaving my two older kids is HARD.  Leaving my dad who is sick is heartbreaking.  But I know we have to finish the things God has started here in Belize.  Because I do feel and know that what we have brought is different and people's lives have been changed.  People who were unsaved or mediocre in their walk with the Lord are now stepping up to full time ministry  And that makes my heart overflow.  And that makes the almost seven years we have been here worth it.

Many places we went, people would ask, "you are adopting another one?"  As if, we just find children by the road and decide to bring them home.  Of course, that is not what people mean, but it feels that way.  We did not come to Belize with any intention to adopt more children.  My and Lee's heart was completely full with the three children we were blessed with in Texas.  But two times, God has spoken very strongly, to once again to step out in adoption.  Of two very specific girls.  And our lives are all the fuller because of it.  Their lives are completely different than they would have been if we had not stepped out.  Many girls who are in children's homes who are never adopted, "age out", and are pregnant within the first year, repeating a very broken cycle.   Lee and I cannot change the world.  But God can use our lives to change the lives of a few children.  Just like we cannot save the world, but we can impact the small nation of Belize.   Sometimes what God asks of us, others will never understand.  Sometimes people think its easy for us.  But it is not.  We are just like everyone else.  

Coming home to Belize has been....many things.   Sad, as we clear out Tori's room.  Frustrating, as we have had car trouble ever since we got here.  Heartbreaking, as we deal with a situation in the church.  BUT ALSO...  Exciting, as we see what God has been doing behind the scenes in our leaders.  Comforting, as we get to come back to all the Belizean food we miss in America.  Refreshing, as we clean out and move around the rooms.   Going from seven to five people, the house feels so BIG now!!   Hot, our first night, was the worst in a long time and none of us could sleep.

Belize will always be a special place in our lives.  Even as we someday release the church to the Belizean pastor, we will definitely always need to come back.  Having two Belizean girls, it made my heart so happy to buy some local Meat Pies and Panades for them yesterday after we took Elizabeth to the airport.   And Erika thinks she's Belizean:)

I'll love you even if...

I'm a missionary.   I'm a mom.   I'm a wife.   I'm a teacher.   And three of my children were born from other women.   God is teaching me so much in this journey.   And I feel like He will use it in the future to help others.

Sunday and Monday were very hard days for me.   For one, dry season came in with a fury.   We have had pretty nice weather and then, all of a sudden were hit with 100 degree days and no AC.

Sunday, we also learned of some deception going on with one of our younger girls.   And it involved other friends from church and dance.   After a full day of church service and then baptisms, we had to deal with it, visiting the other families.

The most important thing in our home is truth.   We thought we were getting through.

Monday afternoon, I broke.   I was just so angry.   And hot!   I asked, why, God?    I'm tired.   Overwhelmed.

Tuesday morning, after a good nights sleep, and fresh perspective, I sat her down.    I told her that she broke my heart.   That I thought she was learning to be honest, and then finding out, she really wasn't.   But I also told that I still loved her.   That I still am thankful that God chose me to be her mom.

Mothering the broken stretches you in ways you never thought.   Everything is different than a child who was raised in a healthy home.  Discipline has to be creative.   You have to break things that the enemy has had rule over for years.   And it seems that truth affects every area.  When trust is broken, it touches everything.

But I have a hope.   And His name is Jesus.   And that Jesus chose Lee and I to parent these children and teach them to come to Him.  And although I often feel ill equipped in this journey, I see that He is constantly working behind the scenes.