The Morepork

The other night I was sitting with the kids reading the new Bear Grylls adventure book to them. As we were reading about smugglers, and jumping out of an airplane over the Sahara desert we heard a loud bang against the window.

We immediately jumped up to see what it was. We looked out the window and saw a small owl (called a morepork) lying on the ground. We ran outside to see if it was still alive or dead and what we should do with it. To our amazement it was alive. Henri ran and got gloves while Anri ran to get a box and blanket to keep it warm. After bringing it inside to get warm we started trying to figure out what to do next. As it was a holiday we weren’t sure who to call or where to take the bird that would be open.

 

We called the Bird Rescue center but there was no answer. Then Amanda remembered that our neighbor used to be a vet and might know what to do. The kids and I ran over to our neighbors house and asked him if he knew what to do or could come over. He told us he would come over and check it out.

Mr. Mortimer checking out the owl

 

When he got to the house we led him to the garage where we were keeping the bird warm in a box. He stuck his hands in and picked up the baby morepork. We watch eagerly hoping the owl would be alright. As soon as he got it out of the box the owl was trying to get loose. Our neighbor examined its eyes and said it probably had a concussion but was alright. He set it on the ground outside and after a minute of adjusting the owl flew away.

We were a little disappointed that we weren’t going to be able to keep it for few days and nurse it back to health, but we were even more excited that it was alright and able to fly off.

It was quite an exciting night and definitely a memory we will not forget anytime soon.

 

 

 

Oil based paint

In case you ever get oil based paint on your hands or legs or arms or wherever here is how to get it off.

I am all about home remedies for things! I believe there is a home remedy for just about everything and I love learning what they are. One day I would like to make a book with all the things you can do with household things that you never thought you could. Like making your own goo gone (I could post about that later)

So here is your household products use for getting oil based paint off your hands.!

I know you can use turpentine but that stuff is terrible for your skin and not something you should be putting on your body.

It even says: causes skin irritation

 

The other day we were painting chairs with oil based paint and after we finished well we had a bit on us but didn’t think much of it. Anri went to wash off the paint brushes (in the sink-not a good idea) and ended up with the paint all over her hands and unable to get it off. Her hands just kept getting stickier and more coated with the paint. Of course I first told her she was going to have to live with her hands that way forever!

 

stickier and thicker!

 

I quickly looked on line to find someway to get it off. The only thing I found was to use mayonnaise but we didn’t want to waste expensive mayo on hands so I started thinking. I figured it had to be the oil in the mayo that made it work so I figured lets put some oil on your hands and then lets add salt as a scrubbing agent.

 

We did that and it worked out marvelous after just a few scrubs the paint was all off. Her hands were just oily. So with some dish soap the oil was off in no time! Her hands ended up really soft and smooth as well. I think I may want to wash with oil and salt sometime soon!

Day one of being shoeless!

I am so blessed to live in a country where it’s not the oddest thing to see people walking around without shoes. It is not unusual especially for children to be barefoot at the supermarket or running around in town. Because of that I am hoping this will be a great experience and I won’t feel to odd.

If you know me you know I love to walk around barefoot anyway so I would think this should be quite enjoyable!

Well day one was sure interesting! I decided I was going to go about my normal routine and not worry about shoes. Since it is school break I spent a lot of time around the house so that was a nice relief. It was odd to feed the Chooks and worry about hoping not to step in chook poo. Thankful I did not step in chook poo today! Yay!

Going out to feed the lambs was another story! I had to walk across really sharp rocks to get to them, I walked so slowly and took each step very carefully. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it was going to!

The weird part was going to the shops. I thought I would be so confident as I drove to the shops. I will admit I did put a pair of sandals in my car just in case L When I walked into the first store I felt like all eyes were on my feet. I felt like everyone around me was thinking “why is she not wearing shoes?” “her feet must be so dirty” Thankfully the more I walked around the less awkward I felt. The next shop though felt the same way. I found myself walking down the shoe isle and all of a sudden thought “why am I looking at shoes when I don’t have shoes on my feet?” It was an odd feeling. The weirdest shop was the supermarket. The floor in there was so cold and I felt like everyone was looking at me like I was weird! I saw a few kids without shoes and it made me feel a little more normal. Walking through car parks was also strange just hoping I wouldn’t step on glass.

It was an amazing first day and I was reminded that this must be what it feels like when you don’t have the things we have to meet our needs. I thought of kids that come from families that can’t afford new clothes of Shoes and have to go to school in the torn, dirty clothes they have. They must feel self conscious and thinking everyone is looking at them. I definitely got a better perspective on things today and look forward to what comes next!

 you can read all about shoeless and get more details on my other blog

Shoeless in New Zealand

Limestone Island

This Wednesday for CHEW we went over to Limestone Island. It was awesome!

We met the ranger around 10am take his boat across to the channel to the Island. Limestone Island is a reserve; they have worked really hard over the years to get the island cleared of pests and make it a place to bread kiwi and other animals, insects, and plants that need to be protected. They have even gotten rid of all the ants except one kind. There are still a few pests on the island that they are still working on getting rid of.









After two trips the whole group was on the island and, Ranger gave us a history of the island. It is truly a fascinating history you can read all about the island here http://www.limestoneisland.org.nz/ The island was orignally Matakohe Island when the Maori were settled on it. The Maori had kumara plants all over the island. After the Maori the island was used as a cement factory which is what all the ruins are from. When the cement factory was abandoned and starting to fall down the air force came in a bombed the site so that it would just be rubble and less dangerous. Once our history lesson was complete, the Ranger took us on a tour of the island and showed us all about the traps and things they do on the island. He has only been living on the island a month but anyone can tell he truly loves it there!





We went up to the site of the Pa (moari settleing). It was beautiful from the top! It is always amazing to see Whangarei from a different angle and from the island it was amazing! We went to the ruins of the old cement factory, and he even showed us how he finds the Kiwi’s on the island.



Pa Site











finding Kiwi's


Kiwi egg

It was definitely the best CHEW that we have had and everyone really enjoyed the day even with the heat.

Where is your foundation?

Sunday night I went with my friend Brittany to Reality LA. Through Tim's message and worship I was radically reminded of the Lord’s provision and faithfulness to be the strength in our weakness and work all things together for good to those who love God.

I have been radically rocked this week! The Lord is breaking me and teaching me a lot at this time. At Reality Tim was teaching out of Hosea 8 and talking about our foundation and what it is found in. Every foundation that we try and build on will fail and crumble. When our foundation is in Christ when the waves come we will be able to stand. It’s cool because the last few weeks the Lord has been reminding me where my foundation is and who I am.

The Lord never promises easy roads and no storms, but He does promise to get us through them. The Lord is teaching me that in the biggest way right now than I have ever experienced.

So while I am honestly hating life, hurting a lot, and feeling like I am going to fall apart at any moment. I know that because my foundation is in the Lord, I will be able to get through it and He has a plan through this storm. The Lord keeps telling me “I got this, I am in control, and I will hold you together. Just keep your eyes fixed on ME.”

There is no where else I can lean and nothing else I can do but lean on Him.

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

His oath, His covenant, and blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When every earthly prop gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found,
Clothed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne!
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

The study is a must listen too!

Refuge girls blog

This year we (some of the high school leaders) decided to start a girls blog and read through the Bible in 62 weeks and blog about it everyday. While this is a huge challenge for me I am also growing a lot and it's only been a week. You can check out the blog and out reading schedule at refugegirls.tumblr.com

I got a job (kind of)

So I am now a writter for examiner.com! My title is Santa Ana Family Examiner.

I will be writting articles on everything that has to do with family. My first article was just published it's on tips to make a better less frustrating gingerbread house! Everyone should go read it! I get paid based on the traffic of my articles so the more people that read them and are refered to my articles the better I get paid!

Also everyone should thing about becoming an examiner! it's fun and you can write on almost anything!

Here is the link to my first article

http://www.examiner.com/family-in-santa-ana/10-tips-for-making-a-better-less-frustrating-gingerbread-house

Being a Bondservant

I have been trippin out on the idea of being a bondservant and what that means lately!

Last Wednesday night we started the book of Romans at Refuge! So far it has been such a blessing and I can't wait to see what else the Lord does through the book. The book starts out with saying "Paul, a bondservant of the the Lord." I was listening to Brit Merrick's study through the book of Romans and he took a full study just on the what a bondservant is. Tim Chaddick also has an amazing study on bondservants when he went through the book of James. I taught about a year ago to a group of teenagers on what a bondservant is and what it means. All that to say I have learned so much in the past on it and recently it has come back up in my mind alot.

Jake is now teaching Refuge on Sunday nights which is awesome. So as we prayed about what book he should start with the students we decided the Lord was leading to James. As a result of doing James we started talking about what a bondservant is and what that means for us.

A bondservant is a willing servant. One who decides after the time of serving for six years decides that his master has treated him well and in turn wants to continue to serve the master. God did this for us. He gives us everything we need and accepts us as family. All we have to do is to choose him and lay down our "freedom" to serve Him.

There are so many examples of people throughout scripture that have given up their "freedom" and decided to follow the Lord with everything they have.

How cool would it be to be known as a bondservant of the Lord!! to be known as someone that everyday wakes up and thinks it is no longer I who Live but Christ we lives in me. That's what I want and yet it's so hard for me to actually humble myself and do.

England update

As I am Number one... horrible at remembering to take pictures and Number two.... horrible at making time to update my blog

Here is a link to a bunch of pictures from our trip also if you go to my facebook you can see a bunch of pictures!! cfteam2010.blogspot.com

Sorry

The whole trip was great! The Lord really did a work in my heart and in many others!!
Thanks for the prayers!

First Few Days

Here we are in England. Our cottages are so cute(I'll put picts up later). The area we are in is so beautiful I would move here!! It's all farmland. I went for a run this morning and ended up running behind some sheep which you don't get in california!! The day (2 days) of travel were really long and exhausting! but we finally arrived.

Yesterday we went out to a few different cities and handed out fliers and talked to people about the festival and Jesus. Last night a few people went to a Pub in town and did an open mic kind of thing. I stayed back with a group and prayed for the team that was out. Everyone that went said they had an awesome time!

Today 7 girls and i went to the festival sight and did a lot of organization stuff and administrative stuff. I love getting to do that kind of thing on missions trips. I had a really good time.

Creation Fest 2010

So I leave Next monday for England! I can't wait to see what the Lord has planned!!

I am going to try and update this blog as much as possible while on the trip so that everyone can see how it is going as well as know prayer requests! so we will see how that goes. If you want to be put on our prayer list just tell me your email address and I can add it to the list.

summe with Kathleen...

So aparently I am horrible at trying to update this... I will have to do it after I get back from engalnd with all the things Kath and I have done It's been alot

Picnic

So Kathleen and I went on a picnic in a place we have never been. We went to this park by my grandparents house and ate. It was next to these stables and it was a beautiful day. Since I am lame and always forget my camera we bought a small crappy digital camera for 10 bucks at CVS. While the pictures are pretty crappy they still show that we did something.





We also went goodwill shopping but once again I forgot the camera so we are going to go again so that we can have pictures.

More coming soon...

My Summer with Kathleen!

I am spending most of the summer house sitting at my grandparents house. The Beautiful Kathleen is spending most of the time with me.

In an effort not to look back on this summer and think "what did I do this summer?" We have decided to make a list of all the things that we plan on doing. So I will be blogging our efforts along the way.

Here is our list so far....

Fly a Kite
Go to the Rodeo
Go to the Santa Ana Zoo
Walk around canyon park
Get tan
Get temporary tattoos
Read a full book
Ride a horse
Get Kathleen cowboy boots
Ride the Balloon
Sleep outside
Find a spot of our own (that Chad hasn’t been to)
Make necklaces
Make bracelets
Wash Cars
Eat at Pedros
Roller Blade
Cook a meal from a cookbook
Go to the OC fair
Swim in the Lake
Have a water fight
Slip and slide
Go to the farmers market
Go goodwill shopping
Have an old lady tea party
Watch the Sunrise
Go on a prayer walk
Have a picnic in place we’ve never been
Sleep in a tent
Swing on a tree swing
Learn to Lasso
Lasso something
Climb a tree
Run all the way around mile square park
Learn to line dance
Go to England

Is there anything that we should add to the list??

Carp for the day

Yesterday was amazing!!

I have been so stressed with school and other thing lately that all I wanted was a day off!! It's crazy being a worship leader for a small church. I don't remember the last time that I took a Sunday off and was able to just go to church to be fed. I rarely get the opportunity to go to church at all to just be at church and not lead worship. SO I got my amazing friend Lindsay to cover for worship and Jake and I decided to take the day off and go to reality. Our first thought was to go to Reality LA, but then we thought let's just go big and go to Reality Carpinteria. So we did!

We were excited to see our Al and Nina, and Sarah Yardley!! And to be able to go to Reality! Jake had never been to a reality before and I had never been to Reality Carp for a regular service! We made the drive up there for the 12 service and surprised our amazing friends! It was so exciting to see them and get to spend the day with them! Sadly I am horrible and did not bring a camera (I really need to work on that) but Sarah took a picture so I'll have to get that up!

All in all it was an amazing day! Thank the Lord for Lindsay and giving us a much needed day off!

Mud Run!

Saturday My parents, Jake, and I all went and did the OC eco mud run! we had a really good time and got all muddy!! This is my 2nd year doing it! Everyone should come do it with me next year!!! :)

Festival of Life part 2

I was so incredibly blessed to be able to be a part of this festival of life team! I love each and every high schooler that came and that i got to meet and spend time with! When Sarah first asked me to be a part of it i was unsure an then i found myself saying yes and thinking what in the world I am so not equipped for this and I don't even know most of the kids that are going!

I am totally blown away by what the Lord did. My side of the trip was very different than most of the others that went. But that's how all missions trips end up for me. I did not lead anyone to the Lord in fact I did not even end up talking to many people that were not on the ministry teams. But I did get the chance to pray A LOT.

I think sometimes we forget the importance of prayer. I realized while we were at the juvenile hall ministering to the teenagers there that while I thought I was there to talk to the kids I really was there to lead worship and to pray. The Lord has a funny way of doing things like that to me.

Pretty much everytime that I thought I would be doing one thing God ended up having me pray it was awesome and a great reminder of how important intersesory prayer really is!

I really enjoyed my popsicle and story time at night with most of the high school girls. They got to hear my entire "love" story and parts of my testimony and the things that the Lord does in my life. And some super exciting stories of what they now think is my really exciting life!

We had really long, hot, days in the sun but all in all it was such a blessing!

I was so blessed to be able to go and can't wait to do another trip like this! For stories and such from the trip check out http://www.facebook.com/festivaloflife?ref=ts

petie and rosa

After last night and someone trying to break in I was not going to sleep at my house alone. Chances are no one was going to try again but I was still a little freaked so my good friend Katt spent the night.

We had the craziest memorible night ever!!!

While outside Daytona started freaking out at this box that is in our drive way. She was going crazy like there was something inside. Of course that made me a little nervous. After all that happen the night before, what was in that box? so Katt and I decided we needed to take a peak. I got a broom and slowly wedged the box open. To our suprise peaking around a bucket was this guy (Petie- that's what we named him)



we were trying to get a better picture but we didn't want to get to close and he was kinda hiding.

We tried to call animal control but they were closed and we couldn't find a 24 hour one.

So we proped the box open with the broom and went to my parent's window to watch. We were kind of excited to see what it would do. After a while Petie jumped out. However He did not just get out and run away. As soon as he got out he turned around and we could hear that there was another opossum moving around in the box. (Oh my gosh 2 opossums) (maybe it had babies in there.)

So we watched. Petie jumped back in. So then it got us thinking we need to research opossums. We found out so much interesting stuff about them. Apparently they are marsupials which means that they carry their babies in a pouch.

Next we saw another opossum jump out. This time we noticed that it totally had babies in a pouch. No joke! it was crazy!! so we named her Rosa. Very Long story short Petie and Rosa got out of the box and ran away. We are now going to check and see if they came back?

We had a very exciting night. And now we know way more about opossums that we ever wanted to know. :)

911 call at 330am

Matthew 5:44 says to love your enemies so why is that so hard to do sometimes?

Last night (i guess this morning) at 330am I was awakened by noises outside of my window and my dog growling. At first I thought oh it's probably a rat or something whatever. Then I heard loud heavy breathing. Then I heard what sounded like someone jiggling the door handles to our cars it was really freaking me out. Since my parents are in Utah for the week and I am home alone I was getting really scared. I thought of all these things like... Should I go get a gun and load it just in case?... or should I turn on all the lights?... or should I just scream?.... I didn't know if I should just call 911 or what so finally after the noises really started to sound like a person and didn't go away I picked up my phone and called 911.

The lady was super nice she sent officers over and stayed on the phone with me until they got there and I could talk with them. of course by the time they got to the house I had turned on all of the lights and the sounds had been gone. But they checked everything out in the front yard and the back yard just to be sure. and Daytona just barked and barked at them (which really scared one of them which i thought was funny.)

After the cops left I was still freaked out because who knows where the person went and if they would come back or whatever. So I went to bed but couldn't fall asleep. My first thought was praying that the person would get bitten by one of the black widows that lives in our drive way.

Then I thought God wants us to love our enemies and to pray for them. So I found my self praying that someone would come into their lives and share the love of Jesus with them. I kind of freaked myself out by praying that because that's not a normal thing for me to do.

I realized it's easy to pray for our friends. Yet so hard to pray good things to those that do wrong to us. Let's start praying and loving our enemies more.

Festival of Life part 1

A couple of weeks I go I was asked by Sarah Yardley if I would consider being a part of the festival of life team. I had no idea what that even meant or what they were doing. The only thing I knew was that a group of high schoolers were going to the Coachella Valley to help with some outreach thing. So I told her to send me the info i would pray about it.

The next day i found myself texting her and saying God said I need to go but I have idea what I am getting myself into. I still don't really know what the whole trip involves but I do know that I am supposed to go and that God is in control. We are helping out with outreaches and things surrounding the festival of life http://www.lovmovement.com/

I am actually really excited about it! The Lord is taking me out of my comfort zone and placing me in the unknown! I leave next Wednesday and come back Saturday night! I will post another blog on it when I return with all the things that the Lord did!

Till then prayer would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!