Rain, rain, go away....

...but not until this litle girl gets to play!

We had to run quite a few errands this morning, and Taylor for sure had fun with her new 'ducky' umbrella. I mean, come on, who wouldn't think they were pretty cool carrying that trendy umbrella around town?!

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

I have just spent the last hour sprawled out on our couch, surfing the 'net while Taylor is sleeping. I can't remember the last time I did that. I'm coming to the realization that many times this is a profound waste of time. Some days, though (like today), it feels really good to engage in some sort of mindless activity. Nevermind all the other more profitable things I could have done in the last 60 minutes.

Taylor and I took Aaron to the airport this afternoon. As much as I miss not having him around when he's on the road, I have to admit that there is one aspect of life that I always look forward to when he's gone: cooking meals that I like and he doesn't! Aaron's not much of a soup/stew kinda guy, so in a few days, I'm going to whip up some beef stew, and if I'm really feeling ambitious, try my hand at making french bread. Of course, it would be much easier to run up to the store and buy a loaf for $2, but what is easiest is not always best. My childhood memories of my Dad's homemade french bread are inspiring me. Crusty on the outside, soft on the inside.....yum.

Random

Aaron leaves tomorrow for another week in Townsville, Australia. I've gotten so used to having him around for almost 3 weeks in a row, it's weird to think of him being gone again! :-) But I'm sure we'll have a fun week, regardless.

The next big family event that is rapidly approaching is Taylor's birthday, which is just two short weeks away. We spent some time today talking about her party, which is a good reminder to me that it's time to start devoting some serious thought to the matter, so I'm not trying to pull it together at the last-minute. Not that I'm known for that or anything.

I think that I've now offically hit writers block, as I've been staring at this screen for way too long while my mind wanders in 1000 different directions, none worthy of being written here. Hopefully inspiration will strike again tomorrow.

The American Pastime

Baseball season is in full swing. No pun intended. And so also is the time of year that I feel the twinges of homesickness, as I know full well what is going on in those 29 ballparks across America - and therefore know full well what I'm missing out on all the way out here. Baseball is as much a part of the American culture as rugby is in the New Zealand culture. It's just part of being American. And for those of you who knows us well, you will know that Aaron and I were no strangers to Kauffman stadium in our Kansas City days. (Now those were the good 'ole days!). And you will also know that I absolutely love baseball.

So we do the best we can with what we've got all the way out here - between ESPN live games (Red Sox/Yankees series!), and mlb.com, we've got it pretty good. But it still isn't the same as sitting in the stadium, eating a ballpark hot dog, and standing on your feet, screaming loudly when your team is down by three runs, has bases loaded, 2 outs, and the count is full. And screaming even louder when you hear that 'pop' off the bat, knowing that someone has just hit a grand slam. You gotta admit - that's just fun! (Or, speaking of the Yankees/Red Sox series, when your team is down by 3 runs and then hits 4 home runs in a row, to tie a major league record of most home runs hit consecutively. That's gotta be pretty awesome, too).

So, all that to say, I wistfully look forward to the day when maybe someday I'll be back in one of those 29 stadiums (preferably one belonging to a team that I like!), drinking in the sights, sounds, and smells of baseball. And hopefully it will be sooner, rather than later.

Question of the hour

To fold laundry or to blog? My tribe has spoken. Laundry wins.

A full week; a full house.

Who would have known that it would take as many days to recover from camp as we actually spent at camp?! I have been pretty tired these last couple days; fortunately for me, I haven't had any commitments these last 3 days, except going into the prayer room for four hours on Saturday morning. I don't know that I can truthfully say I feel completely rested, but alas, tomorrow begins the start of another week whether I'm ready or not. And a full week it will be! We have a guest speaker coming to teach class for the internship, and after he leaves on Thursday, while other good friends of ours arrive to stay with us for a couple days. On Wednesday, Taylor's friend Kylie and her big sister, Leilani, will be coming over for the day, as their mom and dad are in Australia for the week. That will be fun for Taylor - it's been a long time since she's had playtime with Kylie. As busy as it will be, I am looking forward to the opportunity to welcome friends into our home and enjoy time with them!

And now onto the subject of life, death, and eternity.......no joke, that's been the bedtime topic of conversation the last two nights. It all started when I was reading to Taylor in her children's story Bible from "Revelation" about heaven and hell. And she wanted to know all about it - especially hell. So, we talked about it. Who and what is in hell and why. The fact that heaven and hell are real, no matter what other people may say or believe. Why Jesus had to die on the cross. These have been pretty intense conversations, and have moved me to pray for her long after the goodnights are said and the lights are turned off. The weightiness of eternity has struck me afresh - heaven and hell are not only real, but they are real forever. And the realization that this little child who we love so much is also an eternal being just like the rest of us - who must choose for herself how she will spend eternity. This is what moves a mother and a father to pray. This is no small matter. It is my prayer that these conversations that we have about life after death and Jesus and salvation - even at such a young age - will plant seeds of truth in her spirit that will stand strong in the day of adversity.

And finally, so we don't end on such an intense note, let me share just a couple more pictures of camp. This is how Taylor kept herself occupied while Mommy was speaking, leading worship, in meetings, etc. etc. etc. She's such an amazing little girl!

Purely Girls! Camp

Camp this week was awesome. What a privilege to be part of an event that was so impactful in the lives of over 70 young ladies; an event in which there were countless genuine encounters with God; an event after which many will never be the same. And as a bonus, it was just as much fun as I expected it to be!

My role at camp was to lead worship, speak for one session, and inbetween it all, be a mom and to take time to get to know the girls and other leaders who were there. Needless to say, it was a busy week and I came home pretty tired! Thank the Lord for Nic coming to help look after Taylor; it would have been impossible for me to do what I did without her help. My session was titled "Dare to be beautiful", so I spoke about beauty being the essence of woman from the moment of her creation; something that exists within each woman, because that's how we were created. Then I talked about the longing present within each woman to possess beauty, and how this desire is holy and to be cultivated - in the right way. The only way to say no to the inferior ways of satisfying this longing is to find a superior pleasure to satisfy (i.e. receiving a revelation that the Lord sees us as beautiful, and because He says so, we are). And finally, exterior beauty is simply the manifestation of this inner reality that cannot help but to be expressed in the natural realm. That's the short version!

And what would camp be without a bit of fun staying up late? At least, that's what Taylor thought!

You may remember from an earlier post that there has been quite a significant interest from the media in the camp. One of the local tv stations ran quite a lengthy segment on the camp this evening in their post-news "in-depth" program. If you're interested in watching the video, click here. It runs less than 10 minutes.

Going to camp

In a few minutes, Taylor and I are off to the airport to catch a plane to Wellington - and then onto camp for the next few days. She is so excited to go on the airplane and to be at camp with mom - she can hardly contain herself! I'm going to be speaking on Tuesday night, and leading worship for the week, so please keep us in your prayers! I think it's going to be an awesome week, and I'm looking forward to what God is going to do in the hearts of the girls who will be coming. Pray for them, too - that they they would have genuine, significant encounters with the living God.

Not expecting to have internet access at camp....but when I get home, you'll get the full report on the week!

Easter food and fun

When I was a kid growing up, we always did "Polish" Easter, with lots of yummy Polish food. Since moving away from home, I haven't yet attempted my own hand at the Polish delicacies - but this year, I decided to give it a go. Maybe being so far away from home has made me a bit desperate for the tastes and smells of the holidays of my childhood. Philosophical reasons aside, I had a desire to go for it, so I did. Here's Great-grandma Lukachovski's poppy seed bread. (Grandma, I know I probably spelled your name wrong. I'm sorry! You'll have to help me out on that one. But seriously, I think you would have been proud of my bread attempt!)

...And Easter wouldn't be Easter without Grandma Warren's pirogis! (a 'dumpling' of sorts, filled with a mashed potato/cheese mixture, boiled, and then fried in butter with onions):

I have yet to find Kilbasa in this city, so I had to suffice for a lamb roast instead.

But the other special dish of the night was the honey carrots and green beans - only because the beans were fresh picked from "Taylor's terrific bean plants" moments before being cooked! Too bad the girl doesn't really like green beans.

What she does like, though, is chocolate! Fortunately for us all, she didn't eat too much yesterday, but we did have lots of fun doing an (indoor) Easter egg hunt with the chocolate eggs - which, amazingly enough, were not eaten for the entire duration of the egg hunt. Which was, by the way, quite a lengthy amount of time. After Taylor found all the eggs, she was very disappointed to find out that there were no more hidden anywhere - until Aunt Nicky suggested that we hide them all again. So we probably had an Easter egg hunt about 6 times. And again today. And no doubt we will again tomorrow. At $7 for 15 chocolate eggs, that's the best money I've spent on entertainment in a long time! And the good news is that there are still 14 1/2 eggs left to hide! Here's some pictures of the fun:

We finished the evening by spending a couple hours with some of the interns and staff around a big bonfire a couple houses over from where we live. It was great fun to sit around with everyone with no other agenda besides talking and being together simply for the sake of being together. The only thing I missed was about 10 bags of American marshmallows to roast. Next time there's a bonfire being planned, I'll need to know about a month in advance so I can put in an order from home! :-)

Food from around the world

Today we had the interns and staff over for an Easter 'international pot luck' dinner. Since we have so many different nations represented here, we thought it would be fun to taste some flavors from around the world - not to mention the fact that we felt we were 'past due' for a social event. It's been a while since we've gotten together for no reason other than to be together and have fun. I always enjoy having people over and feel so blessed that we have a house where we can do just that. I was thinking back to last year this time and how far we've come. Last Easter we were still waiting for our container from the States to arrive, and were 'camping at home', making due with the bare minimal household items borrowed from generous people here. I'm so grateful for the Lord's provision and abundant blessing. This past year hasn't always been easy, but He sure has been with us every step of the way.

Auckland

Wow! It has been quite a week. Aaron was in Fiji, and life was full-go back here in New Zealand. In the space of a few days, I had some girls over for dinner, had one of the intern girls over for lunch, planned a worship leader meeting, led a worship leader meeting, went up the mount twice, went to the prayer room every day with Taylor, plus of course all the normal things of life such as laundry and cooking and the sort.

Then, on Thursday, I met back up with Mike and Robbie and Christian and we drove up to Auckland. After a bit of shopping at the mall, we headed uptown and got settled in our hotels, and then found a great Italian restaurant that was just about a 5 minute walk from where we were staying. After a really yummy dinner, I headed back to our hotel to kill some time until I needed to leave to drive to the airport to pick up Aaron. It's so great to have him home again!

Then today we met up with Mike and Robbie again for lunch at the revolving restaurant in the Skytower - the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. We had an awesome time connecting with them one last time before they head home, and enjoying the views of the city at the same time.

All in all, it was a fun day. But I have to admit that it's nice to be home together as a family this evening. Taylor is really glad her daddy is home, too!

The Skytower and downtown Auckland

The view from the top of the Auckland Harbor Bridge

Another view from the top

Looking down to the ground through a clear glass floor

Purely Girls! Camp

I've been invited to speak at a girl's camp later in the month, in which the focus is to encourage teenage girls to value, treasure, and celebrate their purity. Session topics are titled "Dare to dream", "Dare to be beautiful", "Dare to be loved", "Dare to be modest", etc. It's an awesome concept, and I'm really excited that I have the chance to be involved. The woman who is organizing the whole thing is a good friend of ours, and I have to say, she's doing a tremendous job!

Things are really starting to get interesting, though, because the media has caught wind of it, and has already run a couple newspaper articles on the camp - one of which was on the front page of the Sunday paper yesterday. If you're interested in reading, here is a link to the article.

So pray for us. For all who will be speaking and for the girls coming, for those organizing the event, and also for those who are talking to the media - that they would have wisdom, clarity of mind, and discernment of speech if there are any more interviews yet to come.

It is interesting to ponder what the Lord is doing as we watch His purposes unfold. I'll keep you posted on how things go.

A "too-tired-to-come-up-with-a-creative-title" Post

What an incredibly busy day! It felt like one of those days in which every spare moment was filled; or should I say, there were no spare moments at all! The day looked like this: prayer room, meeting after the prayer meeting, home to get Taylor lunch, talk to Dad and Joanie on the phone, put Taylor down for a nap, while Taylor is sleeping - make sushi rolls and hang laundry and wash dishes and tidy house and get ready for mount , wake Taylor up to leave for the mount to meet Nic out there, go up mount (new personal best time of up and down in 25 minutes), come home and shower, get dinner ready, set table......then breathe.

Since Aaron is gone, I decided to have a few girls over tonight. So we had an Asian-themed dinner: Oriental chicken salad, sushi, spring rolls, and a mandarin orange-jello-whipped cream thingy for dessert. It was a great evening - good to spend time together outside the context of the prayer room.

Tomorrow promises to be busy still, but not as intense as today. Usually when Aaron goes away, life slows down a bit. Not this time! But even in the midst of it, I feel a sense of grace to be living at break-neck speed - at least for a few days. The good news is that we have a few days off for Easter - I'm definitely looking forward to having a bit of a rest!

Someone 'round here is a big girl!

Last night, Taylor wore 'big girl undies' all night long for the first time! Truth be told, she has probably been ready for weeks, but last night mom decided that enough was enough with the diapers. It's a great feeling to be done with the diaper stage - but with a twinge of sadness, too. My little baby sure isn't a baby anymore!