Fresh Perspective

What a gift each one of you are to me!  You delight my heart.  You make me seriously proud.  You challenge me to my very core.  Indeed you challenge me, but with respect, and I am willing to dual with that. Movies.  PG-13. R. “All my friends are watching them.”  “With their parents”. “Can we?” “No.”  “Exception:  if the message, outweighs the junk.”  We set the SAME standard for ourselves (your parents) as we do for you. I’m sorry that this rule has separated you from favorite hang out times with friends.  Has set you apart, again .  Has frustrated you to the point of cutting strings off my apron (that is healthy, by the way, as long as you don’t whack off all the strings at one time). What is the underlying principal that motivates us to tow this heavy boundary?  It is the text, “I will set nothing wicked before my eyes.”  Psalm 101:3.  It is the scriptures that talks about by “beholding you will become changed”....

Over a year ago, we were blessed to be able to purchase a second vehicle.  Making us the proud (or not so proud) owners of 2 cars and a motorbike.  Which is EXTRAVAGANT!  What is not so extravagant is the condition of the “Mission mobil”.  Take a look at the seat.  Its fabric is all torn.  The springs poking through.  Yet despite it’s looks and lack of air conditioning, the Mission Mobil has been so faithful to help us run this family and head of the household around, ever going in many many different directions.     Many of Darron’s colleagues were surprised that we would drive around, “such a car”.  Darron loves to tell them that we purchased it for not much more than a motorbike.  Since then, many more “beat up” cars have been showing up amongst his fellow laborers.  Nothing like lowering the standard of car ownership.      It is also nice and humbling to allow the teen boys to drive this hot/sweet “...

Several months ago, Darron gave us the heads up that the Shepherdess and Mission Office Staff were heading to the beach for a retreat.  We felt we should join for as much time as possible.  Darron took Jacob and Nathaniel there on the Thursday afternoon, while I covered a shift at the clinic.  Friday, because of school activities and commitments, we could not go.  Saturday morning, we were bouncing down the road early in the a.m.  With coolers full of American food, lots of suntan lotion and water and ready to spend a day with our fellow Indonesian brothers and sisters.    We arrived in time for church.  There were lots of special music’s.  They even coerced Aubrey and Andrew into singing a song.  Church was followed by potluck and so amongst the rice and many traditional Indonesian dishes we placed our lasagna, salad, and es buah (a cold icy Indonesian fruit salad/drink).  Do we stand out or what?     The setting w...

Today is Day 5 of this Mommy not feeling good.  I could bore you with all my symptoms, but the bottom line is, today i reached the point of “caring less”.  It’s kind of a dangerous place to be. I mustered up enough strength to make breakfast for the family and then headed back to bed.  I’m not sure why i just didn’t ask them to cook.  They are quite capable.  Though it is break still and many of the Boyd boys were still sleeping. And maybe by cooking breakfast I could convince myself that today will be a great day.   Needless to say, when lunch rolled around, I wasn’t feeling anymore energetic or enthusiastic.  Again i could have asked the guys to cook, but I wanted healthy food and I wanted to use the sweet potatoes that I had purchased last week at the local market.  The guys tend to want to cook more “fun”, not so healthy, food. So in my “i could careless” mode, I am in the kitchen very non energetically scrubbed the sweet potatoes....

Darron has had privy to take each boy on a “man trip”.  It has always been at least 24 hours away with Dad. Pre puberty is the age (hint hint).  Aubrey= Smokey Mountains.  Andrew= Skiing.  (All the brothers agree that Andrew got the most extravagant man trip). Jacob=kayaking to a private island.  Now it was Nathaniel’s turn.  The Lake Road would be the destination.  On the motor bike.  The night before New Years Eve.    We might as well kill 2 birds with one stone.  The Mom (me) had requested 24 hours alone.  No kids.  No husband.  No interruptions.  Just peace, peace, peace.  So why not send the 3 older guys off on their own adventure at the same time as Nathaniel’s man trip?  They were game.  Furiously Mom begins making all the food preparations.  Assuring younger ones that what they had packed was sufficient.  Running around gathering supplies for the man trip props.  Cancellin...