Just checking in with everyone…we are almost finished with our first full week of our Cadence Discipleship Training School…it’s been so great, full and we are blessed with the greatest group of people here…every time I interact with any of these students, I am blessed, encouraged and well…humored…there’s never not a funny and/or meaningful moment.  How wonderful is that? 

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning from 8:45-10:00, all of us meet at our house and go through a book/Bible Study called Gospel Transformation.  Buddy and I have found this to be the best, Gospel-centered teaching tool we’ve come across…it is put out by World Harvest Mission…we can’t recommend it enough, but it’s hard work…and revealing work, so watch out.

While I’m pimping books out, thought I would let you in on my favorite book right now…especially as I’ve been experiencing this “prolonged teaching time” from the Lord…I asked my dear friend Jessica to send it with one of our DTS Students and have been reading it and re-reading it (for me personally) but have begun reading it to my kids again as well.  This great children’s book has truths in it that have ministered to me greatly in the last 10 days.  The kids and I are writing poignant things down from each chapter (which translates into each verse in Psalm 23).  The first four are:

1.  I can be content (Because the Shepherd is taking care of me!)

2.  I can’t rest if I’m:  1) hungry 2) irritated 3) fighting with other or 4) afraid

3.  God knows that I need most

4.  God can lift my soul out of discouragement.

We got to verse five but then everyone of us started fighting (see point 2) and I thought we should stop for the day…complete meltdowns often occur when I’m teaching my kids the Bible…go figure…grrr…

Anyhow…this is the book and if you buy it from this link, I think we make 5 cents. 

Lastly, the funny stuff for the day.  Now that I’ve started working out again, I have discovered another reason why dryers are the best appliance ever…10 minutes on the elliptical made me realize that the sun does some serious damage to elastic around your “drawers”…I had a moment of great dismay while I was nigh unto running…I think I need to go shopping and SOON.

And there you go…more from the peanut gallery.  Love you all!

Yeah…feeling a lot like a truck ran us over last week and we were completely out of commission for half of the week!  On Tuesday night before dinner, Buddy remarked that it would be nice “to have a relaxing evening” before DTS officially kicked off the next day.  People should batten down the hatches when someone says that and lock everyone in a padded room…it was just moments later when Buddy was jumping the kids on the trampoline and Megan landed on her right arm in a “compound fracture” kind of way.

After a series of misplays…we went to a government hospital at first where we were initially told that she would need surgery, but then they backtracked and gave it a cast and “hoped for the best”…a friend wisely told us to go to the “Foreigner” hospital and get a second opinion…they did surgery the next morning.

Finally on her way to surgery - 2 days later!

Megan did a great job…the hospital was fabulous…they treated Megan sweetly and she acted like getting put to sleep was no big deal, along with getting an IV two times…she’s a trooper…especially for how bad of a break it was…it made me queasy just looking at the X-ray.

Right after she got released from the hospital, we made a run for the Burma border…4 hours one way and 14 of us in a tricked out pick up truck so that we didn’t go past our 90 day visa allotment.  (On the type of visa’s that we’re on, we have to leave the country every 90 days).  So, off we went, headed into Burma/Myanmar, spent about 1 hour there and walked back over the border into Thailand.

Heading into Burma

Our Burmese "guide" who showed us around the Market for a small fee

If Satan was out to distract us, he did…we felt super disoriented…confused about which decision was the right one for Megan and for our trip into Burma…all on the cusp of the beginning of our Discipleship Training School….Please continue to pray for us, our students and the things that God wants to do with each heart and soul during our time together.  We began our intense Bible study called “Gospel Transformation”, a tool we’ve used before that looks at the Gospel and how it not only saves us, but continues to transform us for all of our lives…it’s rich and full of God’s tremendous grace and love for us.

And so…we’re back in the saddle…praying for less exciting week, but thankful to God for His care for us…

I left off last blog post with the news that God has been placing his thumb on some not-so-beautiful parts of my heart…and to be honest, it has continued.  I’m usually quick to repent and get back to believing and acting out that I’m God’s favorite (sorry, it’s a “baby of the family” thing I never outgrew), but He has been really elongating this process…overly busy in pointing out some junk.  For all of this, I am grateful, in a pain-loving kind of way.  But…drum roll, please….ah…today was a reprieve from the heavy hand of the Lord and I know this because I am feeling F-U-N-N-Y!  All sorts of comedy material going on in my head today and if you feel like indulging on the small, hilarious things in my life, please read on.

To start, I am a big fan of 88.5 FM here because this is clearly the station where they play love songs all day.  It is also the station I turn to when I need to feel good about my Thai studies…you see…love songs are universal…they use words like “always”, “love” “someone” pretty much all the time and they sing it slowly.  Perfect.  Finally, that summer in the 1980′s with Richard Marx in my swanky walkman is paying some serious dividends.  I get the gist of it all and sing along when I catch a word I know.  If God can use a lonely summer of Richard Marx to further His Gospel, then whatever it is that other people are needing help with is chump change.

Next…and I’ve been meaning to mention this for awhile…I don’t know what it is that the USDA is doing in regards to meat in America, but whatever it is…they got it goin’ on….and this is why…whatever their magic act is to make meat NOT smell should be marketed and brought over here.  I imagine if I took a long, investigative glance at the USDA, I would probably disagree with a lot of what they do, but right now, I’m handing out some serious props to their ability to package and de-smell meat.  And then…get this…I find out today in Thai class that the word for “Stinky” is “Men” (falling tone).  Really…this country just keeps on giving me more hilarious material.

It’s so bad that after walking through the meat section, I congratulate myself with a donut sugar twist and diet coke on the way to the checkout.  This is necessary to undo the men-raunchy meat smell connection… a must have.

Props to the United States Department of Agriculture! I celebrate you weekly!

And lastly, while this is not funny, we are on our third iron since getting here (Now that I have my wonderful dryer, it won’t be so overworked…come to think of it…maybe they break in America that much too, but we don’t know because we are a dryer-loving people…).  Hoping that this one will last us at least through the year…we are averaging a new iron every 2 months.  WHAT??

And that, my friends is it for today’s ridiculous monologue of what goes on in my brain…Thank you Lord, for the fun reprieve!