Giggle Box

His giggle will bring anyone around him contagious joy and laughter.  It is a sound that starts deep and just rolls off his belly.  I laugh just thinking about it.  You can touch him and it causes an immediate Pillsbury dough boy response (does anyone else remember those commercials?).

He is so compassionate.  He almost always thinks of others first.  Sometimes he thinks of others a little too much, as he is my Police here, too (lol!).  

The wheels are always ticking away.  They say the average 5 year old asks 400 questions a day, but he is well above the average.  I do believe he is running in at 999 questions a day.  My prayer is he keeps asking the questions and believing every answer God gives us.

God chose you just for us!!

Meditations of My Heart

"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer."

Psalm 19:14

{Everyday Flora in Costa Rica}

I have thought about this verse over and over {it has been a rerun in my mind constantly} the past few weeks.  It is the theme verse for this Bible study I started a few weeks ago with a couple of friends.  

What is the meditation of your heart?  What are your thoughts that play in your mind throughout your days and sleepless nights?  We can hide our doubts, fears, worries, anger, and anything else from others, but we cannot hide it from God.

"O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.  You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.  Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether."

~ Psalm 139:1-4

To everyone else, you and I may appear to have it all together.  But He really knows, because he knows the thoughts that flood every second and every minute of our days.

Is it all acceptable to the Lord?  Is He pleased with our constant stream of negativity, doubts, and worries that are literally clogging up the brain and taking over?  You know what I am talking about.  For me it is the constant thoughts of "I can't get it all done.  What if this happens?  What if that happens?  How are we going to deal with this?"  Let me tell you, I can come up with the worst possible case scenario faster than some people blink.  And what have I accomplished?  I have accomplished nothing but anguish and distress for myself and others around me.  Is this how I really want to spend my life?  I don't want my days to be overcome with these thoughts.  And can't we really say that none of this is for the GLORY OF GOD?  Not at all.  How can my doubts be acceptable to Him?  

This is what I want my thoughts to be.  These are the things I want to take over my mind in the silence spaces of my days.

Psalm 119: 27, 48, 78, 148

27 Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works.

{I want to think about His wonderful ways and works.}

48 I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes.  {I want to know his laws, his commands.  You have to know them to follow them.}

78 Let the insolent be put to shame, because they have wronged me with falsehood; as for me, I will meditate on your precepts.  {Just another example of placing our thoughts on His commands.}

148 My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise.

{I want to hold onto His words and everything He has promised.}

We say we don't have time to meditate everyday.  But we do.  We have our thoughts all day.  We have spaces there.  You know we do, because we use those spaces and fill them with weeds that choke everything else out.  The saying "Mind Over Matter" holds very true.  Just as we choose shoes we will wear and what curtains match best, we choose what we think about.

"Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." ~ Colossians 3:2

This is where my mind needs to be.  All I am doing is tormenting myself.  I have the choice to make my life miserable or to think about everything above.  Things of Heaven are higher and better than anything on this earth {Isa. 55:9}.  Worry brings fear.  Jesus tells us why we don't need to worry {Matt 6:25-32}.  My worries make me a prisoner in my own life.  

These are the things that need to be pouring from my mind.

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." ~ Phil 4:8

Through the years I have caused my own heartache, physically and mentally, and all for nothing.  I simply have to Let GO and Let God because when I do, I am free, and all I have to do is pray.

{La Paz Waterfall, Costa Rica}

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." ~ Phil 4:7-8

My Energizer Bunny

If you have spent any time with him, you know he keeps going and going and going.  He just doesn't stop.  He is my crazy who boy who loves to be outside.  He brings life to everyday.  Some may think he is quiet and shy, but if they only knew he is the one who never stops talking.  I am telling you there is no part of the battery that ever stops.  

He is at the age where he tries to make everything a "joke" and "funny."  His antics are hilarious.

He has a smile that will melt your heart and he has a heart that loves so big.  For all his rambunctiousness he has a huge heart.  How he knows some things, I don't know.  He will start a conversation in the car about God and Jesus and never ceases to amaze David and I with his understanding of concepts from the Bible that lots of adults don't see.  

He came out a fighter for life so tiny and strong.  I pray he takes his strength all the way to the end fighting for Jesus.  

Love him to pieces!!!

If Only...

We know human trafficking is a reality here in Costa Rica.  We know prosititution is very much a reality here, it is a broad daylight reality that is accepted and legal.  Personal stories (I hate to use the word story, because they are not stories, they are nightmares, horrific life events of survival) and visualization of the truth of so many lives here breaks my heart.  How can this be so?  How can I even imagine what these people have lived or are currently living.   

I started doing some research online for hard statistics about prostitution and trafficking here, and what I found is about what I figured...there is no way for them to account for everything and it is much worse than what is documented.  Brothel prostitutes are supposed to carry a health card and prove routine health physicals, so those cases are accounted for, but all the others are not.   So many births are to girls under the age of 18.  It is very common here for girls to become mothers between the ages of 14-16.  After reading several articles and research documents, I thought, how can stats show the woman who are forced into prostitution to buy food for their family?  How can the stats account for all the girls who are encouraged to work the streets close to bars, so that they won't be evicted from their home?  How can it show the women who cross the border into this country illegally looking for any way to survive?  It simply cannot.  

{This picture was borrowed from here.}

What I did read, unanimously, is that the majority of the customers or consumers for the prostitution industry and human trafficking are North Americans.  Costa Rica is an international destination for human sex trafficking and the ringleaders of these criminal organizations are just as powerful as drug cartels.  They have property that can be sold again and again which makes them an invaluable asset.  These girls are coerced into thinking they will get out of a bad situation, earn money, and will then be able to have a "better" life than they know.  Their path and choice is driven by dire need.  They are in situations where they have nothing left.  They have no tangible goods left to sell.  They have nothing left...but themselves.  They use everything they have left...just to survive and provide.  

{This photo is borrowed from here.}

Prostitution researchers’   say,  ‘women are in   legal prostitution for the same reason they are in illegal prostitution, a lack of alternative survival options. Most women in prostitution did not make a choice to enter prostitution from among a range of other options. They did not decide they want to be prostitutes instead of doctors, engineers, lawyers, pilots. Instead their ‘options’ were more in the realm of how to get enough money to feed themselves and their children. If prostitution were really a choice it would not be those people with the fewest choices available to them who are disproportionately in prostitution. Such choices are better termed survival strategies. Prostitution is about not having a range of educational and job options to choose from. Most women in prostitution end up there only because other options are not available.’’

But there is another option available to them.  They can have the Lord, if only they knew there was another option.  What if they knew the Lord and had the opportunity to know the Gospel and to obey His precious word?  The impossible is possible with God {Phil 4:13}.  It is possible for them to not have to choose this.  No child should have to live the nightmare of traffic, scenes, and sounds in the confines of their own home {shanty, at best}.  And every mother and woman {tragically, girls...children} should know that there is another choice out there. She should know she is worth far more.  She should know that there really is another choice.  If only...

*** I credited links to pictures I borrowed, simply for reasons of copyright.  ***

Angel Eyes

She was the first to call me "mommy," the first set of angel eyes that were mine.  She is growing up too fast.  It seems like just yesterday I was holding the tiniest 5 pounds and 5 ounces.  Eight years have transpired at lightening speed, and almost half of her time at home is gone (she can stay with me longer if she likes, but they all seem so ready to flee the nest).

John 16:21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

"Angel Eyes"

Thank you Lord for these "Angel Eyes."

The Difference

Through tear-filled eyes you hear the words, "Nobody wanted us."  Left at a young age, not the only child, but one of 4, and the oldest only 15 years old and the youngest 3 years old.  Their father left them years before for someone other than them and their mother.  Years later, their mother abandons them.  None of their family would take them in.  They had no one to care for them, no one to provide for them.

They were born into turmoil and extreme poverty.  A world where life was already very hard, and it just  got even harder.  When they became abandoned, their grandmother offered to take their older brother but none of the other siblings.  They went into government custody and remained there for four years until their mother decided to resurface.  They lived in a system with so many other orphans and abandoned children, where the common thought is, "I was not wanted.  I am not wanted.  I am not loved."

This is not a Costa Rica epidemic, it is a worldwide epidemic.  It is an epedemic of people not having the knowledge of what a true father is, and most of all who our heavenly father is.  It is an epedemic of people never learning what love is and how to love.  These children knew their father left them long ago, made another life for himself that excluded them from his heart and his life altogether, and the only thing they had left was their mother.  Left with nothing and in government custody, they call their father, begging for him to get them out.  He appeared for a few visits, but left them there.  Four years, these children were left in an orphanage, until their mother came back.  They left the orphanage and returned back to a place where there mother still couldn't provide and care for them.

These people are no different than you and I .  I was born in the United States of America.  I was born in a land where education is everyone's opportunity, where those who have nothing can obtain food stamps, women can feed their children with WIC, provide their children with free medical care, receive unemployment checks for a time until they can find a job, and so many more benefits that it is really just embarrassing when you think about the extreme suffering in the rest of the world.  I lived in a place where even if I couldn't find the job of my dreams to provide all the comforts and necessities to my family, I could have flipped burgers making minimum wage to provide them with food and shelter.   I could make minimum wage and obtain a higher salary than most people in the world and buy goods that are at a much lower price and more readily available than anywhere in the world.   I was born with parents who loved me, cared for me, and provided above and beyond what I ever needed.

The difference is millions of children in the world are born in a place where their life seems impossible to change.  They live in circumstances, that just aren't realistic to residents of the United States.  They live in places where they cannot continue their education enough to even read.  They live in a place, some with parents, some without, and they all think "no one wants me."

And the biggest difference is so many don't know God, they don't know Jesus, and they don't know His love.  How do you imagine a heavenly Father who is so awesome when all you have ever seen is the polar opposite of what God is?  And how will they ever know, if we do not "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation" Mark 16:15.  How will they ever know what LOVE is and that,  "God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" 1 John 4:16 if we are not teaching and being a light to the world?

What Do You Think?

Here is the new blog...that I think I originally said would be done by January.  Better late, than never.  If you are looking for a blog designer please check out AlwaysInBluhm.  Theresa was awesome to work with and so patient with me!!  Wonderful experience.

I now have navigation links at the top.  The most important one that I want you to know about is the Prayer Board.  I will update it every Sunday afternoon with current prayer requests.  If there is anything you would like to be added to it, please send me an email {I even have a fancy little button for that}.  There is nothing more wonderful than being a witness to the power of prayer.  I will keep it updated with answers too!!

Have a beautiful Lord's Day tomorrow!  

From All of Us

We are so thankful to everyone who has supported us this past year and currently.  Without the help of many, the work here would not be where it is.  Your prayers and words of encouragement help carry us through the work here.  This is the Lord's work that has so many people involved to make it possible, for people here to be made aware of the Gospel and the opportunity to choose to obey the Gospel.

Each one of us in our family wanted to thank everyone for being a part of this work.  It is a family conversation so often of how thankful we are for the support that we have to be able to physically be here.  We are so thankful for the prayers that help us through the trying days and rejoice with us in the happiest days.

THANK YOU!

Ran Out By Raccoons

While Mom and Dad were visiting us in December we took a couple days to drive around some, sight see, and a trip isn't complete to Costa Rica without a day at the beach.  We have tried to visit different beaches each time, kind of easy to do when there are so many.  So many people kept telling us that we had to visit Manuel Antonio.  So, David did a little map searching, we talked to some more people and it sounded great.

Manuel Antonio is a national park here in Costa Rica and is a tourist destination.  It is about 2 1/2 hours from where we live.  We were told to arrive there by 10 so that when we entered the park we could see the monkeys.  We managed to arrive on time and headed into the park.  Mind you, we have 4 kids, lunch, beach gear, and a 3 year old who wanted to be carried.  You hike through the park to get to the beach and throughout the hike you are supposed to be able to see lots of monkeys, sloths, bugs, raccoons, and probably a million different kinds of snakes if I had to guess.  It is a cleared path, but you are literally in the middle of the jungle where jungle meets beach and along the way a pond of saltwater crocodiles.

We made our way through the park and to the beach and didn't see but one baby sloth.  I would have never seen it if someone else had not pointed it out.  There were no monkeys eating or wandering around.  Huge bummer to the kids.  Logan was expecting to see another Vomit Inducing Monkey who ate his puke over and over.  So, yes, he was rather disappointed.  

                                                                                

                                     

With a view like this, who could be upset about no monkeys hanging from a tree.  I am pretty sure you can tell from the photos there weren't any huge disappointments.

{there was absolutely no shade at the this beach...

unless you were going to hang out with the 

families of raccoons}

She would rather play in the sand and haul water

to where she is playing than get in the water.

Starting the foundation of their 

sandcastle

Do I need any words for this?

{just wanted to throw a picture in of 

my handsome hubby}

The kids lasted about 4 minutes building the 

sandcastle.  This was as much of a masterpiece

as David and I could do.

People had mentioned that there were raccoons near the beach, but they failed to mention that they are very aggressive, persistent, and tons of them.  We made our way across the beach, staking out a spot to set up all the gear and make peanut butter sandwiches.  We saw people shooing raccoons away from their stuff, so we thought we would just get closer to the water, out in the beating sun, and slather sunscreen on constantly.  Well, that game plan didn't work.  David got the beach mat laid out, my hands are still full of things, Dad sets one bag down...and BINGO for the raccoon.  He is trying to get in the two bags that have been set down.  Well, he succeeded with the bag with our bread for lunch.  So, we had enough bread for the kids to have half sandwiches and I think a couple of adults had a few crumbs of bread with spoonfuls of peanut butter and jelly.  If that wasn't enough, they still kept trying to get in our things.  There were not just a few of them, there were families of them everywhere and into everyone's things.  They eventually ran us off the beach.

                                      

Funny thing is we left the beach, walked out of the park, sat in a flat bottom boat amongst crocodiles.  I literally sat in a boat that moved 2 feet, from one sandy area to another sandy area, so that I would not have to walk through "croc water," and I paid to do this.  I thought they were going to paddle me around to the road where I needed to get out, but nope, we just moved two feet and we were done...I had to walk the rest of the way hauling a 3 year old and beach gear.  I laugh now....I didn't then : ).  We all get loaded into the car and then see where we came out of the park there is a public beach (free, with exception of $2 parking) that looks great, close to the road for easy access and what do you know...we walked through the entire park and no monkeys only to see one walking around outside the park at the street!