In a nutshell: Florida wildlife, amazing food, educational and fun aquariums, gorgeous sunsets, silky sand beneath our feet, and perfect surf making us wave with the ebb and flow. So relaxing and perfect for making us realize how much God has blessed us this last year!!!
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Today is one of the first truly GORGEOUS days of Summer. We've had a few days of thunderstorms, so the world is washed fresh and green is peeping back from under the brown. I've almost lost a couple of plants due to the heat, and due to the business the lack of watering or weeding. The front beds are pitiful. I did confess to my husband the other day that I far prefer the backyard garden to the front yard. We live off a main thoroughfare street, and so the noise, smell of cars, and occasional honks and lewd remarks from burly men in old pickup trucks make it less relaxing than the back yard. That and the robin dive-bombing me every time I tried to weed this spring was kind of a psychological deterrent to the front yard! So I've felt a little guilty that the backyard is thriving while the front yard is struggling. But my husband also pointed out that this is my first year to have several full blown, food producing GARDEN BEDS all of my own. So he said I should allow for some trial and error. I think in the fall I'm moving most of the delicate plants out of the front beds and into the back beds and just going to plant huge hardy flowering things in the front for passer-by-ers enjoyment! The fun things that need attention are going into my haven. This year I've been coming across a lot of gourd art, so I decided to plant birdhouse gourds to see if I could join in that genre of art. All but two of the seedlings died from pests or heat, but the two that made it are doing quite well. This is the first seedling all grown up:
The above pictures are of some Birdhouse Gourd Art we saw in Brown County (which reminds me I have GOT to finish that post about our AWESOME adventures there!!). I'm hoping to get enough gourds to experiment with a lot of these ideas (LOVE love love the birds in the middle picture. The big gourd in the picture on the left is actually a purse/picnic basket! and the masks on the far right picture are made out of gourds!). But the main thing I want to do is get a Wood Burning Kit and make henna-designed birdhouses out of the gourds. They sell for a small fortune online and I'm pretty sure I can do the same thing... but we'll see. So if anyone is looking for Christmas Gifts ideas for Yours Truly.... Wood Burning Kit!!!!
What could be more thrilling than to be taken by the hand by none other than Robert the Bruce's mother and shown how to drop spindle? Well, probably several things seeing as it was an actress whose accent would make a true Scotsman cringe, but nonetheless, it was exhilarating. I've tried using a drop spindle before without much success, and my teacher blamed it on the fact that I was using wool (and probably not the highest grade, either) instead of Alpaca. So for about an hour we chatted about the various animals one could own that would produce fiber for spinning while she occasionally corrected where my hands were placed or how tight I was twisting. By the end of it I had a small but perfectly serviceable ball of alpaca yarn. While she wound it off the spindle and into a ball, we discovered that we were both preparing for VBS at our churches and had a lot in common. While we learned about each other the woman snuck in a few tidbits of advice and encouragement. I left feeling educated, edified and refreshed. There is something beautiful about learning how to live life over some kind of needle and fiber. Be it sewing, crochet, cross stitch, embroidery, knitting, weaving, or spinning, the Art of Womanhood seems to be more vivid and appealing and easy to learn when its taught during the education of one of those arts. The women I consider the most prominent mentors in my life have all taught me how to use some kind fiber. Mom taught me cross stitch, grandma taught me sewing, my mother-in-law helped me transfer from cross-stitch to embroidery, and various women along the way have either built upon those skills or taught me new ones. A couple of the kids I teach on Sundays and Wednesdays have asked either for me to teach them how to knit or to knit them something. Its funny to me because these are the kids that have gadgets and gizmos aplenty. They have ipads, ipods, iphones, know the latest songs from the latest stars, and have 'being cool' down to a fine art. But they are intrigued and fascinated by the handmade. And they recognize the specialness of having something made especially for YOU. And being special isn't something these kids are used to. Older folks coming alongside and mentoring them isn't something they get very often - if ever. So with much fear and trepidation the church secretary and I are starting the beginnings of a knit/crochet/fiber lovers meeting at the church. I've been adamant that kids and youth who want to come get to come as long as they behave themselves. The ladies in the church need to see they are capable of discipleship,and the kids need to see that the older people aren't all ogres. A couple of people have asked me to help them improve (or acquire!) their knitting skills, so they'll be welcome too. However I will say that I really think that teaching how to knit ought to be left to the experts. Yes I can follow a pattern correctly now, but I hardly feel that makes me an expert! And in the meantime, I 'm knitting up a batch of turtles for the kids going to camp. I'm using the acrylic that various ladies in the church have given me, and using the little scraps of yarn that usually litter the carpet for the stuffing, so its no extra expense. As a final thought, I encourage you to look for ways you can reach to people in odd unconventional ways. You have no idea how touching it is to have someone cheerfully and naturally teach you a skill that will edify you and others for the rest of your life. Or maybe you do know how touching it is, in which case I heartily encourage you to pass it on to others. Be that blessing for someone else. So as if Monday wasn't enough to make me feel thankful, then this morning I saw a special on PBS about an AWESOME outreach in Chicago called Albany Park Theater Project (APTP). Inner city kids go and get free theater lessons and help write plays based on their stories. Its not a Christian ministry, but it is doing powerful work amongst kids who really need someone to come along side them. I've honestly thought about ordering the PBS documentary and showing it at my Church and following it up with a time of reflecting and asking everyone to please lets just overhaul our whole ministry model and strategy. Listening to the kids testimonies and seeing where they lived made me think of the kids I left when I finished my time volunteering at the Orphanage in Romania (a place I've been thinking a lot about recently). I want to bloom where God's planted me, but the soil He put me in just doesn't really seem conducive to blooms! But then I look at my garden and the chalky red clay that is everywhere else in the yard. And I look at the gorgeous blooms the hollyhocks are starting to shoot forth, and the little basil seedlings that are popping up everywhere, and think of the handfuls of strawberries and bowl fulls of peas I'm bringing in each evening. And if God can make a garden in this washed out, nutrient deprived soil then He can use this burnt out, tired old church to do some good in this community as well. But it took a lot of Miracle Grow and compost and supplemental bags of soil from Lowes to make it suitable for plants! Which has made me think a lot and pray a lot about what kind of Miracle Grow God is going to put into this church. We need something. At this point I don't even know what to pray for. But I realized watching the PBS special that 1. At first I was jealous of the director of that ministry. He gets to write and direct plays, has a Ph.D in drama (Whaaaaaat? Dude if I ever get a doctorate its TOTALLY in that!) is financially successful and has lots of awards and acclaims. But his wife died of Ovarian cancer last year. And she's the one he started all of this with and now he has to go forward alone. And while he was smiling at the camera, I know he goes home to a home all by himself and is sad and lonely. I don't feel pity for him, I just became thankful for myself. I was thankful he had a happy marriage while she was alive and I was happy that I have a happy marriage. And while I'm not rolling in the dough, God's given us ENOUGH without struggle. Which is more than I've ever had before. 2. I realized that, despite it being a hard ministry; despite it being a job that feels like 5 jobs but no one recognizes as a job and I get called a 'kept woman' by various people; despite the lack of consideration from coworkers or fellow Christians; despite the fact that its with kids from hard families who use up anything good until its sucked dry of all goodness and then scream for more; despite all the hardship and ugliness... guess what. I GET TO BE IN MINISTRY!!!! Its a needed ministry, its a HARD ministry, and its planting seeds for the future in a place that most people don't even know exists. And I get to do it. Thats a dream come true for me. I've always wanted to be in a ministry that reached the hard to reach. I saw 'remember the Titans' and I wanted to be Denzel Washington's character: a mean ol' cuss who won the respect of kids and dragged them from the gutter and inspired them to BE somebody. Last week I had all the kids write notes of encouragement to each other and they gave me one too. One of the kids wrote, "Mz Rachel, you're sometimes mean. But I know you're mean because you are trying to teach us and help us do better. And you're really pretty and a great mentor." (stupid janitor threw all the cards away so I don't have it anymore!!) I read that note and almost cried. I get called 'mean' all the time. But that was the first time anyone recognized why. Everyone knows tough love is rough on the person recieving it. No one acknowledges tough love is reeeeally tough on the person giving the tough love. Its easier to be walked all over. I love Laura Story's song 'Blessing' and I put it here so you could listen to it too. Sometimes blessings are good and sweet and gorgeous like basil or anemone's or strawberries. Sometimes they come through hardship and toil like roses and thistle blooms or onions. Or like thunderstorms that give rain but are still loud and scary and noisy. Either way they are still blessings, and its important to be thankful for them - yes not just in spite of but BECAUSE OF the packages they come in. I don't know if any of this is making sense, but its what I'm pondering and going through right now so I thought I'd share. I hope it helps you along your journey. |
AuthorA normal woman learning to serve an Extraordinary Lord in Ordinary ways, and watching Him turn it into Amazing Grace! © 2014-2015 Rachel Hester. All rights reserved. Archives
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