I have had a couple weeks now to reflect on my trip to Haiti. Having been there in 1981 I was interested to see what had changed. In so many ways, nothing has changed. But as I spent the time at Hands and Feet and saw what they are doing there, I see what a potential for change there is when people are truly thinking about what is best nit just today for the kids at the village, but also the change that can come from the mission of that project.

First and foremost they want to give all the children there a good life, a good bed to sleep in, good food to eat and a lot of love. They want to give them the opportunity of education. But rather than go to the "feel good" mode so many of us Americans feel, where we swoop into these other countries to adopt and save our one child and bring them to America where they can have "the good life" the people of Hands and Feet want to bring up these children in their country, in their culture, where they can love what is good about it and be strong and educated enough to change the things that are not so good.

It is so interesting to watch people who are in God's will, doing God's work. Drex and Jo and Michelle and Larry love what they are doing. They love their kids. It shows in every part of their being. Is it an easy life? NO! But they don't seem to mind because they are where God put them, doing what God called them to do. They truly are God's hands and feet in action.

I felt God's pull on my heart there. Am I supposed to move to Haiti and be a missionary? No, that's not what the pull is about. But what He has laid on my heart is I can be the support on this side of the ocean. The food program they have started has touched my heart. They are not trying to take children out of homes where they are loved, but where the parents struggle to feed them. Can you imagine a greater love of a parent than to offer to give up your child so they can have a better chance? But the peole of Hands and Feet understand the value of family and of keeping those families intact. They have a program where they help the parents feed their child. But they need financial help to do provide the needed milk and formula and rice. Their first priority must be the children directly in their care and they cannot take away from them. But if I can be an advocate here for them, to help raise the funds they need to purchase those supplies, they can continue to help the nearly 40 families they currently serve, and they can expand as God expands our heaarts in our giving.

God has laid this burden on my heart. I am still praying about the how, where and details, but I know that I need to help. I know I need to get the word out so others can help. We are so blessed and we take so much for granted. Have you been to the faucet for a clean glass of water? Have your kids gone hungry? We need to count our blessings and know that God gives us those blessings so that we can in turn bless others.

I will be having more to say, and more importantly do, on this subject. I am waiting on God for direction but I want to be His hands and feet. Will you pray about coming along side me in this ministry?

It's been quite some time since I posted a blog. Life gets so hectic at times and it seems like I meet myself coming and going.



I tend to be a "ponderer" at times...just needing to step back and have a look at life and what is going on around me. Our lives go in such cycles, good and bad.



I have been technically single now for eight and a half years, though divorced only 4 and a half. I have had a few dates, met a few guys. I know it is a good thing that I went through some counseling before I started dating again and established my own sense of worth, because if I processed everything I have been told by other people about me in the last few years my self image would be the pits.



I have become a skeptic of real love. What I see in the Christian dating world is so much shallowness and so much "what's in it for me" that it makes me wonder at times if I really want a relationship. But God puts that desire, as the song says, "I was made to love and be loved by you." I am not big on this new trend of making lists of what you want and letting God know. God does not always send things in the package we expect or anticipate. And yet men and women alike all think they are going to find the perfect person, perfect body, perfect intellect, perfect situation. While God is perfection, we are not. We are all getting older and let me tell you..stuff happens! Things change. We all need to take a step back from the chase and ask God what He wants for us..and who He wants for us. If you can only love me as a size 10..then you do not really love ME. Did you ever as a kid get a package on Christmas morning, all brightly colored and wrapped and the anticipation of something wonderful was there..and you open it to find socks and underwear? While these are very important things it is not what we expected. The package means nothing in the grand scheme of things. It truly has no correlation to what is on the inside, the gift that God has created.



My friend told me this weekend she is getting married. This friend is divorced and has never learned to truly take care of herself. I have tried over the past 4 years to encourage her to get on her own and feel that sense of safety in knowing you can survive out there (with God's help of course). But her mind has always been on the pursuit of finding her husband. And she has. I am relieved that he is a good man who treats her well, because she has been involved with several who were not. I finally had to come to the place where I just accept that she needs to have someone to take care of her. Maybe that really is my problem. I want a relationship that is about wanting to be together, not needing to be together. I just want a man who is strong enough to deal with the fact that I am independent, but can also see that I desire the companionship and would welcome that partner, helping me make it through life. That is what I want.....but I feel like that is never going to happen. So I go through life, working too much, stressing about the details and waiting on God. I will enjoy my life as fully as I can but wait to see if God is going to open my heart to someone new...or if there really is just nobody out there to love me as I am, then I just pray that God will keep me content in my singleness.

Kids say the darndest things....

I have 2 great nephews, ages 4 and 5 and 2 great nieces who are age 6. I love talking to them and listening to them talk to one another. It is both entertaining and enlightening.

When Dawson was 3, I was holding him at a church function and he started looking at my earrings. They were a pair of dangly ones and not the turtle ones he had looked at before. He looked at them for a moment and turned to me and said.. "Aunt Cathy...these aren't you turtles. No Dawson, I didn't wear the turtles today. But Aunt Cathy...these are NOT good to look at!"

At church last Sunday morning, Tyler, who is now 4 was in my arms. He suddenly looks up at me and very seriously tells me that "he has drips coming from his eyes." Leslie and I proceeded to giggle in the middle of worship service.

When my nephew Travis was 2 and his brother, Michael was 10 months old, we were all at my parents and Michael had an allergic reaction, which we found out later was to eggs. The back of his head at the base of his skull was quickly swelling. Everyone began rushing around to get Michael to the emergency room and I was going to stay behind with Travis.

I gathered Travis up in my lap and he asked what was wrong. He was a very verbal 2 year old. I explained that Michael was sick and they were taking him to the doctor. He looked up at me with those trusting, innocent eyes and said "Why don't we just pray for him?". In my very adult way I said..we will as soon as they are gone. Travis looked at me again, tone changing to a very serious and stern tone and said "NOW."

It stopped me in my tracks and we did pray right then. We teach our kids that God is the answer and that He heals. And then when we are presented with a crisis we want to call on the doctor first and God later. Is it any wonder that Jesus loved having kids around?

So my prayer for today will be "Lord give me that childlike faith, to believe and trust and to love unconditionally."

Refreshingly Tired

I have not blogged for a while and there is a reason. I have worked in childrens ministries for 30 years now and am now the Driector of Children's Ministries at the second campus of the church I am attending. I have worked in all areas of kids ministry so I guess the only thing really different this time is the title..lol But I have been very busy getting the programs rolling.

I'm not 21 anymore and don't always have the physical energy I used to...but when I step in that room with my kids, joy fills my heart and I am refreshed. There is so much energy and excitement in a child. The world is opening up new to them every day and they get excited about things we have allowed to become mundane. A butterfly isn't something to shoo away from your face but something to chase and capture and inspect... and dirt, especially mixed with a little water, has so many possibilities....

I love the challenge of finding something new and different to captivate their attention. To find that one thing that will open their mind to what God has for them and is trying to show them. And I love that they bring me back to that place of awe and wonder at the things God has made.

I found a picture I am hanging in my classroom that is titled Priorities. The jist of the message is that although there are many things in life we may do that bring us recognistion, wealth or fame, there is nothing more inmportant or more precious than affecting the life of a child in a loving and positive way...for that carries to the next generation and shapes our future. I am blessed. Blessed that God has chosen me and given me the heart to teach and reach kids.

Now...where is my fingerpaint.....

Love is a many splendored thing?

Do you ever have those days when you wonder what it is about you that keeps members of the opposite sex from loving you? DUH!

I have a lot of male friends. Very good friends whom I love dearly. And they are wonderful men. And sometimes I wonder...what is it about me that keeps all these relationships from moving beyond that stage. Is it them or is it me??

Coming out of a dreadfully bad marriage has made me cautious...that I know. I wonder sometimes if I emotionally stiff arm men to make sure they don't get any closer than a friend. It's easy for me to say their lack of romantic interest is because I am "full figured" or that I am no beauty prize. But I think the truth is that for so long I have held people at arm's length. I have kept myself from being emotionally available.

Emotional wounds are so much more difficult than physical ones I think. I have had to reprogram my brain, because of the things that my ex made me feel and things he said. When you spend years being assured of your lack of self worth, even by someone you know is not a good person, it has an effect on how you see yourself and on how you let others into your life. As much as I want a good and healthy relationship and a mate, there is that little voice in the back of my head that says "Look out!" and it is hard not to hear it.

The straight thinking part of me knows that I have learned so much and I know that I will be a better wife in all areas. That part knows that I desire the companionship and intimacy of a mate. That part knows that despite my looks or my weight or any of those externals, that I have a good and loving heart and that someone out there will see that first and foremost.......I just have to figure out how to evict that little voice from the back of my head once and for all.....

Don't Give up...try again....

Those are the first words of a song I used to sing in a gospel group I was in many years ago. The song said

Don't give up, try again. This time you can make it. Don't you see all heaven wants you to win. Gather all your courage together and make a final stand and I know that you can make it this time.

There is a power that has come to help you stand. It is the spirit of God sent down to man. If you will just trust His name, your life He will rearrange and I know, that you can make it this time.

You may be scarred, you may be bruised from trying so many other things but I know through Jesus that you can win. For the price was paid in full when the spikes went down in to the wood and I know that you can make it this time.

I think about that song even after all these years. We all fall and get scarred and bruised along the way. God understands our flaws and our weaknesses as well as our strengths and our true intents. He is standing right beside us with a hand toward us....all we have to do is make the effort to reach up and take hold.

I look back at the last few years of my life. I was scarred and bruised and in many ways felt lost and alone. I tried to "pull myself up by my bootstraps" so to speak. But until I was able to fully surrender my life, problems and scars and bruises and all, God couldn't move. When I finally did that, so many things changed.

Although I still have my struggles, God has brought me to a place where I have people I can turn to...for love and support and encouragement. And He has taught me to do the same for the people around me..to reach out and to be able to love no matter the circumstance. I have made so many new and wonderful friends who have blessed my life in so many ways. See...all along God knew that I needed people around. I had been isolated for so long due to circumstance, but God knew the desire deep down for relationship.

There was another song that touched me in my journey back to joy. It says:

You can have my heart, though it isn't new. It's been bruised and broken and it only comes in blue. It's been down a long road. It got dirty on the way. If I give it to you can you make it new and wash the pain away.....

I have learned that God can mend your heart, no matter what it was that broke it. You can love and trust and have joy again.

I have truly learned the value of the scripture that says if you want to have friends, then show yourself friendly. God has been bountiful in His blessings to me and I hope to always remember that and do my best to be a blessing in return.

At the Airport....

I sit now at the airport the "morning after" the most recent terrorist plot was foiled. Of course, I overslept a bit. I have a 7:30am flight, live 50 miles from the airport and woke up at 5am. Well.....I rushed to get to my car, went without my morning coffee and rushed off to the airport. I had to park in extended parking, catch the bus to the terminal, check my luggage that had all the appropriate liquids stowed in carry on, go thru security...would I make it??

People in the USA are resilient and flexible. I not only made it throught the process with ease, I was the first in line at the "A" boarding for Southwest. We get worked up about things like getting to the airport on time. This may have been the quickest and easiest I have ever made it. Go figure! :)

I must now board my plane...I will write something intelligent after I have had my coffee......