My Special Girl, Emily

This is my precious Emily quite a few years ago. 

This is my Emily now.

Emily is my side kick. You rarely see me without her. For 8 years I taught school and every day she went with me. We have special restuarants, songs, words, jokes, secrets, and stories.

So today, I felt like I should be sleeping in the dog house when she came to me in tears. It seems I wrote a special blog for Clay and Katey on their birthday. But i didn't write one on hers. That led to the old "there aren't as many pictures of me as there are of them either".

Now if you are a mom and have more than one kid, you know that life happens and the last kid gets the shaft in some ways. But in other ways, life is good. I was the oldest of three and found the position quite restrictive. Let's face it, parents lighten up as time goes on.

Emily is way cooler than either of them were at 12. She speaks spanish, is comfortable in many more situations than I am even today. She loves Jesus and has a heart of compassion. She is genuine, sweet, beautiful, talented and funny. So even though there are less pictures of her and this blog is a month late, her and I have way more secrets. I mean, I know that ever since she read the book Junie B First Grader Aloha-ha-ha!

she has wanted to go to Hawaii. So we have a plan, when the other two are finally out of the house, we are going!! And I promise to blog about it and take tons of pictures!!

Fashion Sense

I panicked today. We take Katey to college in 2 and 1/2 weeks. I didn't panic for the reason you are thinking, I panicked because I only own crocs and flip flops. I only own old capris. I own t-shirts and Gautemalan jade jewelry. I don't even wear a wedding ring. On a normal day these things don't bother me, but today it hit me. I am going to a weekend orientation with my daughter at her new college and I am going to look like a missionary.

This might sound silly to some, and shallow to others, but it was terrifying to me. I spent the evening trying to figure out how I can buy myself a pair of shoes on Zappos and send them to her school before she even moves in, so I can get them as soon as we arrive and put them on before meeting anybody new.

Really. That is how I spent my evening.

Then I thought, I will google a Godly woman devotional to calm my craziness. And up pops a beautiful young woman with a professionally taken picture, professionally done hair and beautiful nails. She happened to have gone on a mission trip this summer for a week building chicken coops. And yet she didn't want to blog about any of her stories because she is planning on writing them in a book.

Really? After one week? A book?

So, here I am, unable to sleep and God meets me where I should have turned first, in my favorite book. Philippians.

"Let your gentleness be evident to all." 
Not your shoes, or your nails, or your new book that you wrote on your one week mission trip..... your gentleness. I know I have that. I have to find it, but it is here somewhere. 

It goes on to say,  "The Lord is near."  Do not be anxious about anything" 
Wow. As if it were written for me at this very moment. 

So I am going to pack my gentleness in my carry on and rejoice in the fact that He is near and I am going to choose to not be anxious about anything. 

I will be ok,  but it sure would help a lot if someone could just meet me at the airport with a pair of cute sandals.

What do you need to pack in your carry on?

There was a death in the family

Yesterday one of our scholarship student's grandfather died.
We got the call today asking if we could please come over, so Todd, Wendy and I did just that. Somehow I got the message that it was the grandmother who had passed.  So imagine my surprise when I walked in and there she was, greeting people. 

I guess I thought it would just be us and the family. Instead, each of the grandkids' classes and their teachers came by. As a class. Wow!!

The abuelo and abuela lived in a small, three room house made out of a thin sheet metal.
To my surprise, they had taken the sheet metal down to make room for all the people. It was big and open and spacious. The family cooked and as a visitor you are expected to stay and eat.

Each of Alejandra's siblings hugged us, sat with us and introduced us to others. We got an opportunity to comfort the family. It was a cultural learning experience and a chance to see God working. It was also a privilege.

What new experiences have you seen God in recently?

A Gift of the Heart

This is my dear friend Engli.
This is her first weaving project and she wanted me to have it as a gift.
I was moved to tears.

Women in Guatemala learn to weave at a young age and then sell their goods to help provide for their family. So, even though it was a gift, I told Engli I wanted to pay her for it.
She asked for 5Q, which is less than a dollar.

A table runner in the market would sell for about 75Q.
"It is worth much more than 5Q!  On Saturday when you come to my house I want you to give me a price more than 5Q", I told her.

Can you see where this is going?

When she came over on Saturday, she asked for 6Q.

I paid her 25Q. But, in my heart it is worth so much more!!

My gym membership ain't what it used to be....

When I started going to the gym, Melinda would meet me at my house, I'd wait for her, she'd wait for me. We'd walk to the gym, talking and laughing, or crying, the whole way. We'd work out next to each other, encourage each other, and then walk home. Talking even more. But Melinda is moving. So now I go with Todd Erickson and Clay Erickson who tell me if they have to wait more than 2 minutes they are leaving me, who walk in front of me because I walk too slow and who have asked me not to speak to them, because I interrupt their "gym" time. Then, if I don't want to get left at the gym, I need to leave when they do. So today, I am feeling kinda blue, as I realize that I'm not getting as much out of my gym membership as I used to!

When is being called fat a compliment? A change in perspective.

My sister, Eileen, came to visit. She is tall, thin and beautiful.



I took her to meet the two Godly sister in Santiago, Zamora. I was so excited for them to meet my sister.



"Maureen," they said, "You are fat and your sister is thin."
Wow, in the US that could end a friendship.



I have lived here in Guatemala long enough to know that saying someone is "gorda" or asking their age is not rude. However, it still catches me off guard. But it was their next line that changed my perspective.
"Todd is able to provide food for you. You are blessed to never go hungry."
I assured them that my sister's husband provided plenty of food too, my sister just eats less and exercises more.

What a paradigm shift. Next time you look in the mirror and are about to complain that you think you look fat, use it as an opportunity to thank God that you have enough food to eat.

I have been working on losing weight because it is a better witness and much healthier. I just hope it doesn't reflect badly on Todd.

All In A Week

This week Emily made marshmallow hearts


and visited a church celebrating a prayer group that has not missed a week of praying in 20 years!!




















Katey redesigned her TOMS that had holes in them


















And delivered money that she raised to Pedro for his therapy.

























Clay pretended to go to the beach



and helped lead three kids to the Lord while helping translate for a team with our church.



I'm not going to pretend we have it all figured out. Just spend more than five minutes with us and that will be painfully obvious. But we are learning daily how to live out the verse
1 Thessalonians 2:8 "We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. "