God's birthday present to me

What a lovely present for me on my birthday, huh? This is the pic from the webcam over in Yerevan, Armenia! The morning of my birthday! Usually we don't see the Ararat peaks but on my birthday, we got to see them both lit up in a pink sunrise! Thanks Lord! :)

http://www.arminco.com/en/livewebcam

The other "gift" was the Operation World country of the day for my 32nd birthday... was... you guessed it - Armenia! Love it!

http://www.operationworld.org/country/arme/owtext.html

Happy Birthday. Good plans. Future, hope, abundant life!

Steven Curtis Chapman

Happy Birthday to meee... Steven Curtis Chapman, here we come! :) Kev got me tickets in the artist circle to see SCC on February 7th so we could celebrate my birthday a little early! Whoo-hoo! We drove down to Fargo and grabbed a bite to eat first. Then off we went to the concert! We saw SCC like 2 years ago here in Grand Forks and what a concert. He has a way of making it seem like he's singing to you instead of just being up in front of hundereds of people. This time we sat 7 rows back right in the middle. Pretty fun!

Kev printed out a pic of me and a friend with SCC way back in 1990 or so and we gave it to a gal to give to him... Not sure that he got it but... still... I put some pics on this post so you can see! Almost 20 years ago!

~~~~
And He has given us a treasure called right now
And this is the only moment we can do anything about

Don't miss the miricale of the moment!

I have a dream...

The kids learned about Martian Luther King Jr in January. Love it.

As I was running up the stairs just a week or two ago, I saw a paper laying on the bottom step by the backpacks and shoes and things... It was a paper they wrote in school that started out with the words "I have a dream..." So I thought I'd see what Hannie filled in under that for HER dream... She wrote:

That I would be good to my mommy.

Oh, melt my heart. My girl.

Eli Manning

Whoo-hoooooo! :)

Super Bowl 2008 was pretty exciting. And even more so because Benjamin and I cheered on our fantasy football quarterback for the final, exciting, last two minutes of the game! Whoo! Go Eli!

(One day Crystal said something about Eli having the ball and our Elijah said... "That's ME?!")

Whoo-hoo Giants!

God speaks through kids

I love when I'm studying something and it shows up again and again... especially when my kids are involved!


For the past few months, it seems like I'm learning a lot about how God is with us. I think I have like 15 or so verses that I've "come across" that talk about that. And a lot of them have to do with us not fearing - He is with us! One of the last verses I wrote down was in Isaiah 7 where they talk about giving the child the name Immanuel, which means "God with us." Neat. Christmas time... Immanuel.


Then Hannie comes home and tells me about the names of Jesus that they're learning about and hanging up on their Christmas tree at school. I ask her which one she likes... she tells me - Immanuel! Later, she comes home with a little paper she's written about how Immanuel means God with us! Heh. How 'bout that.

~Snow angels :)

The other thing I seem to be learning a lot about lately is faith! Believing the the Word of God. Trusting Him. Acting on that belief. One part of a study I read talked about putting your hope in God. She talked about how when most people say, "I hope so." usually mean... "But I don't really think so... It'd be nice but..." We should hope in Him with anticipation and expectation.

Wouldn't you know... Benjamin came home with his spelling list a week or two ago. I'm asking words and listening to him spell... when we come to the vocabulary words at the end. I find myself saying, "What does anticipation mean?" Like God was saying... Are you hoping in Me? Anticipating My work in your life? Heh. Get ready!

Anticipate! God is with us!

blog

ok... you can see that I put off blogging until one afternoon when the kids are napping and then BAM... you get a bunch of thoughts I've had over the past month! heh. just pretend they have December and January dates above them all! :)

happy nap time to us!

Crawford Flag

This is the Crawford flag!

The kids thought we should have one of our own... So the colors are all the colors of their baby blankies: Benjamin's is blue, Hannie's is yellow, Ruth's is purple, and Elijah's is green. I chose to put the world in the middle since we plan to travel around the world. And we all decided Daddy's part should be to put in the cross over it all.

We're taking ourselves around the world to share the Hope of Jesus! Whoo-hoo!

"no buggin"

On our way home from school/ballet the other day, I learned a new 10 commandment...

"No buggin'"

According to our sweet little Ruth, that is a very important commandment, especially when it applies to Elijah poking at Ruth!

When I told her it wasn't actually a 10 commantment, she replied that if it wasn't then it was something Jesus said... "'do to others as you want them to do to you'... and if you want them to be nice and if you want them to be mean - then you should be mean!" Just about! :) I told her we never want others to be mean to us, though, so we should never be mean to others.

Her bottom lip stuck out and her thumb was poked back into her mouth. I'm sure she was thinking that "no buggin'" SHOULD be a 10 commandment... Call it commandment 11.

(This pic is of her and Corduroy, the preschool class bear that comes home with each child a few times a year... important stuff!!)

convert

Have you ever had a time when you had a conversation with someone, only to later think of better things you could have said? Yup, we all have! Heh. That happened to me over Christmas.

Someone was visiting with me about our upcoming missions and about our friends who were missionaries in China. In the end, his question was... "So you're trying to get them to convert?" "Um, I guess... kinda..." Duh-rt...

Yes, in the end, we, as believers in Christ, want others to "convert" to follow Jesus, too. But it's so much more than that. Our desire is to offer out Hope. To give abundant life. To show others that there's a deeper, more personal relationship to be had with God because of Jesus life and sacrifice. Some have never heard the Good News of Jesus love! And some have heard but don't know what it means to have a relationship with the Lord. That is what we're set out to do!

We want to "...hold out the word of life..." Phil 2:16 And usually when the light shines, hearts are changed... converted?

Transformed.
Renewed.

Christmas flu

Christmas 2007 will be rememered as the Christmas of the flu! Heh. Before going home to Williston where my folks live, Benjamin had the flu. He was sick over the weekend of the kid's Christmas program at church. A few days later, it was Elijah. After that, we had a week sick-free. We took off for Grandma and Papa's house... to have Ruth get sick, then a few days later, Hannie got sick - right on Christmas Eve. We celebrated everything on Christmas morning. Then the next day, it was Auntie Crystal. Next day, Uncle Blake... Uff. After we got home from Williston, Kevin wasn't feeling well.

After all that sickness, I'm thankful to be the only one, along with my folks and grandma, who did NOT get sick. Crazy! Usually I'm the only one to get sick! Heh.

Between all the sickness we did have a good celebration of Jesus and enjoyed our time together! :)

(The picture is over Thanksgiving while we were in AR and MO... with Kev's family!)