We survived Thanksgiving! We had a wondeful time celebrating with our family. We enjoyed our first meal with my family at my grandma's house and then headed to Sheboygan to spend some time with Dave's family and enoy some pie. We did a little shoping on the famous Black Friday although we slept in first... no way was I getting up at 4am to stand in line in the cold!
Speaking of cold, I've neglected to post about fall in Wisconsin this year... and how incredibly beautiful it has been! We've had unseasonably warm weather so to celebrate we decided to go hiking at the Lions Den a few weeks back. The trees had already peeked by that point but it was still beautiful. We spent some time hiking down to the beach from the bluff. The lake was beautiful with the sun just beaming! Truly a beautiful fall day in Wisconsin! Here are some pictures from the hike.
Well, the warm weather is quickly fading and the snow is undoubtedly approaching quicker than we'd like. But at least Christmas is right around the corner :)
With Thanksgiving quickly approaching, I thought I would spend some time reflecting on what I am thankful for. You hear people say all the time (myself included) that they are thankful for things… but are those the things they are really the most thankful for? It surprised me when I really sat down and thought about the things I am most thankful for.
So, in honor or Thanksgiving, I have created a list of the top ten things I am thankful for at this time in my life. Here they are in no particular order:
1.My Family and Friends
I love my family very much and am always reminded during the holidays how lucky I am to be a part of such a big, extended family. My parents are incredibly supportive, encouraging, and loving…they’ve helped me become the woman that I am today. I am fortunate to have grown up with nearly all my grandparents and great-grandparents… with lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins. My friends are like family to me, too. I am thankful for the group of girls I have been friends with since kindergarten…and for all the friends I made during college. My life wouldn’t be complete without this extended network of supportive people who feel more like family to me than friends.
2.My Husband
I really hit the jackpot with having David as my husband. He truly is my better half most of the time and we make a great team. He gets me; he understands what makes me ME and he loves me unconditionally. I love his passion for life and his enthusiasm to start a family… he’ll make a great father someday. This year I am especially thankful to have him in my life as my HUSBAND.
3.My Education
Education is something I have never taken for granted but recently, it has become something I have become even more thankful for. My parents instilled in me at an early age the value and excitement of learning. I always loved school and always felt driven to continue to learn, even now that my formal education is completed. I am thankful my parents worked so hard to help me pay for college. I am thankful I had the opportunity to complete my Master’s degree. I will always continue to learn… whether I pursue my PhD or not. Education opens the door to opportunities and I am thankful for that.
Sometimes I complain about this one… a lot. I’ll admit it. There are days when I complain about my house not being perfect or completely finished. There are days when I complain there is nothing to eat or dinner doesn’t turn out good enough. Of course I never have the right shoes to go with my outfit. I complain, just like the average woman. But I am thankful, truly and completely thankful that I even have any of these things. I have seen parts of the world, including here in Milwaukee, where people don’t have these things. Where women and children go weeks without food; where clean water doesn’t exist; or where new clothes consist of hand-me-downs from Goodwill. This Thanksgiving, I am reminding myself to be thankful for the basic necessities in life and to complain a little less about these things not always being “perfect”.
5.The Way Africa Changed Me
This is something I am especially thankful for. Before I left on my first mission trip, someone told me “to be prepared to be ruined”. I had no idea what they meant…until I experienced Africa. All of its beauty, grace, despair, poverty, ignorance, injustice, cruelty, hunger, disease… after experiencing all of that, my life as I had known it was in fact “ruined”. This could be an entire other posting in itself so I will just say, I am thankful that I had the opportunity, the privilege, to visit a place that so many others will never see. I am thankful for my opportunities to share this experience with others and to bring awareness to others. Once you experience Africa you will never be the same… I promise you that much.
6. My Faith
My faith is what makes me get up each morning… it’s what follows me throughout the day, with everything I do. I having a loving Father who gave up his life so that I could live and that is a beautiful thing. I am incredibly blessed and probably don’t give enough gratitude to God for that. I am a Christian woman who tries to live the faith I’ve been taught and learned to trust.
7. My Health
I am SO thankful to be healthy. I see newly diagnosed cancer patients every day, some of them as young as me. I sometimes wonder why they got sick and I didn’t. I watch as my own grandmother battles cancer. I am surrounded by cancer and let me tell you, it really does stink! I am SO thankful that I have health insurance, a primary physician, and access to any and all medical treatment I would need in the event I do get sick. Every day I meet a new reminder of my own good health and every day I find another reason to be thankful for it.
8. My Job
I am incredibly thankful that I found a job prior to finishing graduate school in May. I am thankful that I work for a non-profit organization and that I get to spend every day helping someone. I get to spend each day helping to make the life of someone facing a cancer diagnosis a little bit better. I may have stressful days, moments where I don’t think I can do it any longer, or days when I just complain about work like the average person… but when I stop and think, I am thankful to have a job, especially one that makes the lives of others better.
9. My Future
I have more reasons than not to trust that God has a big, bright future planned for me! How can I not be thankful for that? I know that Dave and I will have a big family of our own someday filled with lots of love. I know that we’ll have opportunities to travel and see the world together. I know that I will find a purpose for my life greater than anything I could even imagine. Just knowing that I HAVE a future is enough to make me smile.
10. Volunteer Opportunities
I always tell people, if I didn’t have to work a day for the rest of my life, I would spend it volunteering and doing the things I love. Nothing makes my heart happier than doing something, selflessly for someone else. I am so thankful that I realized my passion for caring for orphans and vulnerable children at such an early age. I am thankful for the people I have met during my volunteer opportunities. I can’t wait to teach my children about the importance of serving others someday and volunteering as a family.
There you have it…the things that I feel most thankful for this year. Of course I need to remind myself of these things more than just on Thanksgiving. There will always be days when I am most thankful for my cup of morning coffee, or for Sunday night TV, or for a new pair of shoes… but today I am most thankful for the bigger things in life.
I hope everyone has a blessed Thanksgiving holiday filled with lots of food, fun, family, and thankfulness!
Today I came across a new organization that I have to share. I realize not too many people even read this blog yet but I am hoping someday, someone will look back on this posting and be just as moved as I am by the work this organization is doing. Since November is adoption awareness month and home to Orphan Sunday, I found this posting fitting.
Drawn From Water is an organization that started earlier this year in rural south-western Ethiopia. The organization runs an orphanage for children of the Karo tribe, a tribe that lives in fear of evil spirits and superstitions. In the Karo tribe, children who are believed to be cursed or otherwise imperfect are deemed "Mingi". The presence of these children on the tribe's land is perceived to be a curse. As a result, the children are drowned in the river. In January, 2009, a group of mission workers rescued five of these Mingi children. An orphanage was formally established and today, there are ten children whose lives have been saved thanks to Drawn From Water. You can read more about the organization and the meaning behind its name on the Drawn From website, www.drawnfromwater.org.
My purpose in posting this is that others will pray for the children of the Karo tribe, support the work being done by Drawn From Water, and share the information with others. The organization has two great videos that are very inspiring... I'm posting them here. The first is the story of how the organization was founded; the second is about the orphans. After watching the videos my heart was heavy but yet I was full of hope because 10 children's lives were saved.
Today is Orphan Sunday... a day dedicated to remembering, serving, loving, and praying for the world's orphans. Those who know me would agree that every day is Orphan Sunday for me. Orphan care is an issue that I became passionate about during my mission work abroad in Africa and Central America. But not everybody has had personal experiences with orphans and not everyone will. Irregardless, today is about honoring God's word and command to us as Christians to care for orphans. My favorite bible verse is this:
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." -James 1:27
There are more than 147 million orphans in the world. 44 million of those orphans live in the sub-saharan Africa region alone, the region that's home to Tanzania. Every 14 seconds another child is orphaned by AIDS. Every two seconds an orphan dies from malnutrition. Today I want you to think about what you'll do to alter these statistics. Will you pray? Will you give financially? Will you serve? Will you adopt? Will you love the world's orphans? How will you fulfill God's call to act?
Today I remember my time with the children at the Nkoaranga Orphan Center in Tanzania. My time spent caring for 30 of the world's orphans changed me. It opened my eyes to the realities of orphan life. It taught me what self-less, unconditional love felt like. It showed me that God really is the Father to all the children of the world. And most importantly, it gave me the chance to open the eyes and hearts of others. Someday I will welcome an orphan into my own family... for now, I will continue to support and love from afar and pray that God opens the hearts and minds of others to do the same.
... I've joined the blogging world! For the past several months, I have developed a new hobby of reading other people's blogs. I've mostly been following blogs of friends who are traveling abroad, friends moving away, or friends getting married. More recently, I've begun to click on links to other people's blogs - people I don't know. I'll read blogs about families doing mission work in Africa or families adopting from around the world. I'll read blogs about people doing medical missions or people doing ministry work in developing countries. I realized there are blogs for just about anything i'm interested in. The blogging world is actually quite fun (I can see Dave rolling his eyes as he reads that statement).
I had wanted to start a blog a while back to keep everyone up to date about our wedding planning. Dave thought it silly. He didn't want strangers reading our blog. He didn't think we'd have family or friends who would be interested in that. Well, now that we're married our life is certainly more interesting... right? We certainly have more to write about now...right? Well, maybe not. But I realize that as my friends continue to move further away, as my family spreads out across the country and even abroad, blogging is a great way to keep everyone filled in on our adventures as newlyweds.
So, whether Dave likes it or not, we're blogging. And by we, I mean, I'M blogging. We hope you'll enjoy following our new adventure as husband and wife :)
