Memorial Box Monday - A Letter

This is a letter I wrote last night for a project our friend is putting together for her little girl, so she can start to learn and know her dad, who is now with the Lord. It was probably one of the hardest letters I've ever written, but helped me to remember how good God has been in bring people like our friend Jason into our life. We already have a photo of Jason in our memorial box. It was actually one of the very first things I put in it.

As for the letter, Tim is adding some of his favorite stories... but those will come later.

Abigail,

First of all, we want to tell you how much we thank God that we get to know you. You are someone we hoped we would get to know, partially because we love your mom and your dad very dearly, and also because we knew you would be an amazing person. We also thank God because He saw fit to allow us to be friends with your dad Jason.

Your dad was the kind of person you could first meet and realize that he was exactly the kind of friend you would like and need most of all. We both met Jason the first day of our sophomore year of college. He was our resident assistant and he was Tim’s roommate. Through out that year Jason really helped us both grow into better people and closer to God. He confronted us when we were wrong, helping us when we were heart broken and sad, and helping us navigate our way through the struggles. He was always someone we knew we could talk to and that his advice would be godly and biblical. Jason was much more to Tim, he was a best friend, a mentor and the person that was willing to take Tim under his wing and lead him to a true relationship with Jesus. He is both a spiritual father and brother to Tim.

(Tim is adding his story here)

Jason also aided an unruly group of guys in giving Marci a swirly, but wrote a note saying, "Please forgive us!" and hung it on her door after she took a good thorough shower! He was a very funny guy and always enjoyable to be around.

Jason had a few personality quirks, but the one that was most noticeable was that Jason could talk just about anyone into anything. He always did this with godliness, but still could do it, nonetheless. Your daddy was also a really hard worker! He would work so hard; serving and ministering that often he would forget about his own needs and others would remind him to take a break. He was also a really great cook and was very creative in the kitchen. One night at a staff dinner in Crossville both Jason and Marci were getting a brownie from a pan. Jason was cutting the corner piece out and Marci thought he didn’t want it and took it… he said, “HEY… that’s mine! Give it back. I was working hard to get that out!” And we fought over it, but Marci finally let him have it. Jason had good taste… he liked the corner brownies the best.

Another thing your dad was really good at was helping people. He would work on cars, help with housing needs and on many occasions he helped us cut down trees in our yard. He was a servant to all. He was never too busy to be a friend to ANYONE. He had the ability to see people how God sees them and to love them through serving them. We both learned a lot from your dad. He taught us a lot about the Word of God, how to handle disagreements in love and maturely, and how to forgive. More than anything Jason loved the Lord and sought to serve Him in all that he did.

When we moved from Crossville to Durango the thing that made it the hardest was leaving your dad and mom. They were dear friends and we missed them, but it was always refreshing to know that any time day or night a call could be made and it was like no time had passed and no miles were between us. It was hard being friends from a distance, but also so fun to see your mom and dad grow, continue to be faithful at CP even when it was so hard and to see them become parents and hear first hand about the joy and excitement their new sweet daughter brought him!

We both remember when your daddy called us to tell us you had arrived. He was beaming with happiness… he was so joyful to have a little girl! He was SO proud of your beautiful name, Abigail Grace, and he wanted us to know that he wanted you called Abigail, not Abby, because he thought it was perfect for his beautiful girl. He loved you so much, even when you were so little and he looked forward to seeing you grow up into the woman God has made you to be.

You have a great heritage Abigail! Your mom is a woman of courage and hope and your father is a man you can always take pride in. He chose to make the most of every opportunity and he served his God greatly with all his was given! He was special to us and you are too!

We love you,

Tim and Marci

Vinnie and the Ride

This was written by my husband, Tim, for our resent newsletter. This summer we had several "Vinnie Moments" that help us to understand God's heart for the "fatherless" children all around us.

Vinnie is a near and dear to my heart. Vinnie first started coming to camp during Marci and I’s first summer at CBX. Those first few summers, Vinnie was a major behavioral problem. I have been kicked, punched, spit on, screamed at, had rocks thrown at me, cussed out, and just about every other thing you can imagine all by Vinnie.

Despite that, Vinnie is one of my favorite campers. I think it is because underneath the rough facade, I see a hurting little boy and in a lot of ways, this reminds me of when I was younger. When Vinnie came to camp this summer, he asked if he could go for a ride in my dune buggy. I told Vinnie that if his behavior for the week followed some specific guidelines, on Friday afternoon during rec time, I would take him for a drive and buy him an ice cream. Vinnie’s eyes lit up and wholeheartedly agreed. Knowing Vinnie, I realized the chances of his success in this challenge would be a long shot, but it was worth a try.

All week, Vinnie was on his best behavior. I challenged him to be a leader in the cabin, to be respectful to other campers and to learn something new from the lessons each day. Vinnie easily achieved these goals and went above and beyond my expectations.

When Friday came, Vinnie was ready to go. In addition to our ride being on line, he was also the camper of the day which entitled him to going first at meals and having a one on one time with his counselor. At 8 am, I was in my office when I heard the screaming, cracking voice of a 12 year old boy downstairs. I went to the rail and asked what he wanted. Vinnie was there and asked if I was ready to go on the ride. I replied that our ride would be in the afternoon and that he still had 6 hours to go. He said ok and moved on to his next activity.

Throughout the morning, Vinnie proceeded to ask me this question 6 times, each time with me replying “Not yet Vinnie, you have X hours to go.” However when 3 o’clock rolled around, I grabbed Vinnie, we hopped in the buggy and sped away to town. I decided to go the back dirt roads so that we could have some fun in the dirt. The entire time, Vinnie was ecstatic! He laughed, screamed and at one point, looked a little scared.

After grabbing a soda and an ice cream, Vinny and I headed back to camp. About half way back, Vinnie yelled at the top of his lungs to me “Thank you Tim so much! This is the greatest day of my life!”

I shrugged his comment off with a “No problem buddy,” and continued to drive to camp. Noticing my nonchalance in his comment, he grabbed my head, turned it toward him and said with tears in his eyes, “No Tim, this is the greatest day of my life, thank you!” I was floored... What do I do with that? A silly ride in a dune buggy, a 2 dollar ice cream, 2 hours of my day, for the greatest day of this kids life?

I am honestly still processing through the complexity of this moment, statement and interaction, but thinking through this it has dawned on me that Vinnie has really never been shown any love. His dad is gone, his older brother is a bad influence, his mom is busy. Vinnie is alone in a big city, that has very little love for him. Vinnie is hungry for any attention he can muster. Good or bad, anyone that notices him is better than going unnoticed. Marci shared with my sometime ago that she believes we are living out God’s mandate in James 1:29 to take care of orphans and widows, at CBX. In my moments with Vinnie over the years, I have never had a truer sense of this calling. It is in campers like Vinnie, that I find my purpose and it is for young men like Vinnie, that CBX exists.

I think God gives us moments like this and like mine with the "Brown-eyed Girl" to help us see His heart and to help us experience how His love can empower us to love others when we don't think we have that kind of love to give.

And, I am also just so proud of Vinnie for being able to accomplish something we all thought was too BIG for him... Knowing full well, God gave him the strength to have good behavior and to take it a whole step farther and be a leader among his peers at camp! That is HUGE!

Memorial Box Monday - The Dropped Call

Normally a dropped call isn’t a good thing… but in our case I believe it was an act of God that saved our life and the life of our unborn baby.

Tim and I lived in small town Tennesee for 3 amazing summers.

We were driving the nearly 80 miles from Crossville to Knoxville for a midwife appointment at Lisa Ross Birth and Women’s Center. I was 7 months along with our 1st baby and I had a big, beautiful, round belly to prove it!

There is one area on the drive that is beautiful… just as you are dropping of the “plateau” down into the Knoxville valley area. It is lush, green and the highway curves and declines very steeply. It is common for I40 to be congested with 18 wheelers going from Nashville to Knoxville… often the “slow lane” is one long line of semis. It was that day.

This particular day Tim was driving and talking on the phone to his dad in California. Right as we dropped down the steeper grade and started the turn the call gets dropped. Tim takes his eyes off the road and looks and his phone and it immediately and literally the phone falls out of his hand on to the floor. He puts his hand on the wheel and out of the corner of my eye I see a semi SLAM into the back of another semi. Then it recoils and SLAMS AGAIN!!!

Evidently the semi in the back break’s had burned out and as it started down the steep grade it couldn’t slow down.

Mind you, we are RIGHT next to the impact… debres flies into us and hits our car. Tim swirves instinctively and we run on to the very small shoulder, but still can’t avoid as the semis careen past us and hit again. The back semi shuttered and lurched into our lane.

Thank goodness the trucker in front had enough sense to absorb the impact and to applied his breaks gingerly and gradually so that he could stop both his truck and the truck behind him.

Mean while I am hyperventilating (first time ever in my life) and holding my belly and saying, “We almost died… we almost died… Thank you God! Thank you God!”

Tim actually had to say, “Marci slow down… breath easier.” I am generally a very calm person, but it just surprised me so much and I could see the truck shutter and lurch and loom over us so closely that I was SURE we would be hit or crushed.

We arrived at the Birth center 15 minutes later and my noramally very LOW blood pressure was through the roof. My midwife wanted to admit me, fearing I had preeclampsia, until we explained the circumstances that made it so high. She laughed and said, she thought it would go down and rechecked it before I left and found it to be lower.

That is one day we were more than glad that our call got dropped and Tim had two hands on the wheel. God knew!

Brown Eyed Girl

As most of you know my husband and I work at a camp for "underprivileged youth". Basically we provide a low cost camp experience for kids of all kinds. In every camp we have at the least a few foster children. Some times you can't tell, some times they act crazy, some times sad, some times they are the "life of the party." But, they all live with a lot of uncertainty in life.

During one particular camp I got to know an amazingly sweet, bright and thoughtful girl. I'll call her Shelby. Shelby is native. She was taken from her biological parents for some reason and lives with foster parents who've adopted 2 other sisters that come to our camp. This was Shelby's second year at camp and I immediately remembered her, though I didn't get to know her too well her first summer... almost like God planted that memory just for the purpose of this summer.

One day while I lead the craft time I saw that Shelby kept asking for my help or asking questions... help she really didn't need. So I sat and talked and "helped" her. We became friends. We'd wave at meal times or she'd run up and say hi or hug my children. She smiled a simple close mouthed smile with her big brown eyes and long dark hair.

Fast forward to the last day of camp... it is always hard. Everyone hates to say goodbye to campers, especially foster kids. For one, you are never sure foster kids will return to camp... they might change families or go back to their first family. We easily lose touch with them. Secondly, you worry about them... a childhood in foster care isn't ideal.

The last morning every one was leaving, getting picked up and saying goodbye. Shelby came up to me and said, "I have a stomach ache."

I said, "Do you think you drank enough water today?" She shrugged.

I thought, I think this is more than a stomach ache, so I asked the obvious question, "Are you sad you are leaving camp or saying good bye to your friends?

She said, "Maybe."

I said, "Well, sit down and I'll sit with you."

I got to thinking as I sat there, maybe I'm suppose to ask her more... so I did (not really in my comfort zone, mind you.)

So I asked, "What is it like at your house... do you feel ok about going home?"

She said, "My foster sisters are adopted," as if all the stomach ache and seeking me out was to tell me exactly that... like that was the whole problem, no beating around the bush for her.

I said, "How do you feel about them being adopted and not you?" Hesitantly I asked, "Do you want to be adopted too?"

She just looked at me with her brown eyes and nodded. Not a flippant nod... a serious heart aching nod.

Right there my heart broke. I couldn't force myself to ask any more... that said it all.

I lamely said, "I'll be praying you get adopted too..." with a weak smile and a lump in my throat. How I wanted to say something to make her heart not hurt any more, but not knowing what those words would be.

Seriously, what do you say to that? There isn't ANY thing good to say to a child that is worried about going home because they know it isn't really their home yet. There isn't any words that make that better.

In my memorial box I'm going to put a photo of Shelby. First to remember to pray for her personally. Then to remember that there are more than 127k kids like her in the US alone... and millions more around the world. And last, to remember how God helped me get outside myself and to listen to His voice yet again.

Do you know an "orphan"? If you don't maybe you should seek out meeting one. If you do, maybe they just want you to ask them a real question, so that they can give you a real answer.

Memorial Box Monday - The Oak Branch

It is always a gift from God to have God confirm a decision that you've made. As in, when you are torn on "what is the will of God" in a particular circumstance and then He shows you that you made the right choice.

Before we lived in Durango we lived a great little community in middle eastern Tennessee called Crossville. Crossville was becoming my home after we lived there for 3 years, living and working at an organization called Confrontation Point Ministries. "CP" runs short term mission trip and youth adventure trip in Appalachia... my husband was the program director for their home repair trip in the impoverished south. It was highly rewarding, and honestly good to see the humbling amount of poverty that DOES exist in our nation, TODAY, RIGHT NOW...

We had our first baby there, had a little home and some amazingly sweet friends around us.

However, my husband was becoming less and less satisfied in his job, it was very administrative and he missed working with youth... God was leading his heart else where.

He found a job on a camp website for Cross Bar X Youth Ranch... in Durango, CO. He was immediately interested because Durango is about the closest town in the middle of our two families. So he checked it out.

I wasn't so sure, I felt settled, happy, content in Tennessee. I wasn't so sure I wanted to leave my home in the moist forested country. I said, "Check it out... I'll go with you." Knowing, if he is happy, I could make my home anywhere, but still doubtful this was "God's sovereign will..."

We made a trip at X-mas home to Denver and then down to Durango to see the camp, meet the people and see if it was "for us."

The first night Tim said, "I don't think this is what I want." But he had NO reasons why... it was this gut feeling he had. I on the other hand felt a complete peace and assurance it was what God wanted. Talking him off the edge I said, "Give it a full chance and see how you feel in the end of our visit." He did and we accepted the job at the end of our visit.

Fast forward to selling our house... we sold it after 6 days on market and our dumpy 4-plex apartments we owned after 10 days... unbelievable.

We moved and spent 2 months hopping between family... it was a sweet time of "homelessness."

Three weeks after we moved our good friends back in TN called and told us that a tornado had ripped through Crossville, literally right through the forest right behind our house and the large old oaks in our former yard had fallen on our house (it wasn't destroyed, but it was pretty beat up.)

At first I felt HORRID for the family that had bought our house. After that wore off, I realized God's amazing sovereignty and care for us. Had we moved 3 or 4 weeks later we may not have been able to move at all.

I knew God wanted us in Durango and He and He alone had made it happen.

Plus, I learned the family had been taken care of, saved by the basement in our old house (one of only a few in our town that I knew of). One tree in particular had fallen right on the corner of the house where our master bed had been!!! They were also helped by insurance money and were able to fix the house up into even better shape after the tornado. However, I still feel horrible for them...

A piece of oak is in our memorial box to remind us that He lead us to Durango... in perfect timing and to benefit everyone involved.

"God knows the plans he has for us, plans to give us a future and a hope..." (Jeremiah 29:11)

Memorial Box Monday - The Reader

A few days ago my daughter read her first book, a reader! What a HUGE accomplishment!

I reminded me of when I learned to read… unlike most people, I was in 3^rd grade.

I think the first time I realized I wasn’t “like other kids” was the first day of first grade when they made me go back to kindergarten for the phonics period. I knew something was “up”. I wondered why I wasn’t able to remember things and to read like my peers. It made me feel shame and fear.

My wonderful parents took me to a lady… Ms. Bell, I think. She gave me test after test, flash card upon flash card and silly ridiculous games that made me feel like she was patronizing me. She would scowl if I got answers wrong. It made me feel horrible and made my stomach hurt. Then she would make me read using symbols like a blue dot would mean the word “the” and a red line would mean “a”… it was just all so confusing. I hated it! For some reason I didn't want to tell my parents about all this, so I dealt with it over and over from 1^st-3^rd grade.

After my parents saw that this just wasn’t of any value or help to me they started looking for a new tutor for me. Through some providential circumstances they learned about a man who might be able to help me… Dr. Brown. I remember very vividly the first day I met him for testing at his office. I was in 3^rd grade… still could barely read and unable to compute much math. There were more flash cards and blocks and puzzles, but he also let me run down the long hall and timed me. It wasn’t so bad.

Plus, he looked like the splitting image of Abraham Lincoln and his deep echoing laugh was just like St. Nicolas! He was tall, about 60, had a beard on his chin that curled under and eyes that twinkled like they had tears of joy in them all day long. On top of his sparkly eyes there were eye brows that resembled large fuzzy caterpillars. He limped because he had had polio as a boy. He was the closest thing to St. Nicolas I’ve every seen or felt in my life. He never scowled if you got an answer wrong… in fact, he’d hug you! I am sure this isn’t a overly idyllic description of the man, if you’d known him you would completely agree.

With the help of Dr. Brown I was reading with in a few months, I was still in “special ed” at school, but after school I REALLY learned with Dr. Brown. He realized I didn’t learn like other children and told me about people like myself who initially didn’t learn well, but later went on to do great things… people like Albert Einstein. That gave me a lot of hope.

I had lots of trouble memorizing my multiplication tables, and so he taught me tricks to remembering them… one was that 24 was a "most popular” number in the times table and that it had blond curly hair and blue eyes just like me. He told me one time, that the way my teachers were teaching me to do math just didn’t work in my brain… I had a different, more special computer in my head, and I just need to learn how to use it! Plus, he talked to me like I was a person, not a child or not like I was dumb. He challenged me and because of him I learned to love challenges and perseverance. He made hard things attainable.

Dr. Brown focused on my strengths… that I was creative and loved to write and describe things. He’d let me come in and write a story for 15 minutes, then we’d work on math (blaugh!) and then he’d read me a story that he was writing (oddly enough it was about the 4 corner region). Dr. Brown was my tutor from 3^rd to 9^th grade… it was one of the saddest days when he told me that I “didn’t need his help any more.”

Really, I had many bad or mediocre teachers growing up… but truly it just took ONE good teacher to make a difference in my life. One I could believe and listen to for truth. Praise God he was there all through my education, undoing the poor teaching others were doing, replacing untruth for truth! That is one reason I went on to teach (and one reason I’ll home school). I didn’t want children to be scowled at when they couldn’t sound out a word and I didn’t want them to feel shame for something completely out of their control. I wanted them to feel safe and smart and challenged to be who God made them to be!

Dr. Brown was a helper of God. He loved the Lord and affected the lives of many children. God sent Dr. Brown to me when I was most in need of him. I know with out Dr. Brown I would not be who I am today.

Memorial Box Monday - The Booties

I am posting my Memorial Box Monday ... on Sunday because I have a mad day of Spring Cleaning tomorrow and I am locking my computer up for the day. :-)

My husband and I have always wanted a “bigger” family. In fact, we talked about family size on our first date… both of our answers were three… and if we couldn’t conceive we’d think first about adoption. It was settled!

Not long after we were married that we changed our minds. Three just wouldn’t be enough, and maybe we’d adopt, even if we could conceive… it’s not like it is second best or “not allowed” if you can have biological children… right?

We had a girl, then a boy… most people around us thought, “Well, thank goodness, now they can be done.” We thought… “Seriously, we can’t be done.” But, we thought we’d better wait a few years.

Elias was 9 months old when we found out #3 was on its way. Honestly, I was pretty scared… ashamedly because I didn’t want to deal with people’s negative reactions (and there were several). I also began to listen to and believe random fears. Ones that said, “This will push you over the edge” … “You’ll look like a fool” … “Three under 3 and a half is bound to be way too hard” … “Your 2^nd will still be a baby and will be emotionally sacred by not being able to be a baby longer”… “What if your 18 mon old falls in the tub while you are nursing the baby”… and so on. I know, silly, but fears aren’t rational, they are lies.

At about my 3rd month all these fears were pretty overwhelming, and I got so sick of them that I wondered why I hadn’t started to pray about them and hand them over to God? Daily my prayer was this,

“Lord God, You know me and see me, You know what I am capable of. Please hear my prayers and be gracious with me. Give me a baby and child I can handle.”

Daily and many times a day I prayed this prayer for nearly 6 months until our baby arrived. Any time a fear would confront me, I prayed. Anytime I got a negative reaction for my swelling belly and 2 little ones I prayed and cried a bit too.

It was not all with out incident… I was fairly anemic the last 3 months of my pregnancy. I went 9 days over due and oddly my labor was the longest and most difficult of my three.

Our 3^rd baby was born 10-9-08… at 6:20 pm. We named her Cora Anne.

After the birth my whole family (including my mom who was to be helping me) all came down with the stomach flu. Thank the Lord neither our baby nor I got sick. Then I had 3 bouts of mastitis while she was a just a newborn… something I hadn’t had before either.

I had really not prayed about those type of things, mainly because I knew I could handle most things if only our baby wasn’t a fusser. Fussy babies aren’t my forte. I am sure that I could have endured had she been colicky or demanding (like our first) but that is what I prayed for… an easy baby.

As the weeks went by I kept expecting her to “hit the fussy phase” but by about 6 weeks I realized that she was just a happy, easy, content baby. She slept good at night and just went along for the ride. In fact, nothing had really changed from having 2 to having 3. She just slipped into our family with out breaking waves.

As I was thinking about this one day I realized a sweet seed of truth… God had heard me. God saw my heart and was gracious with me! At the same time I realized that Cora means “heart” and Anne means “gracious”… Right in her name was what God had done for me… seen my heart and dealt graciously with me!!!

Every day, I thank God for the little girl that reminds me that there are NO accidents and that He sees me and is will give me exactly what I need.