10 weeks from today

10 more weeks!

10 more weeks!

Hard to believe that 10 weeks from today, my son and I will be sitting on a plane heading for Mexico City on a sponsor tour with Compassion International!! I know this is going to be a life changing adventure for both of us and I want to make sure that my heart is prepared for our journey.  

In our trip journals, they encourage us to pray early and often for the trip. They even provide specific prayer prompts! How amazing is that! 

Over the next ten weeks, I will be adding a new book to my morning Bible time which will help me spend some focused time in prayer at the beginning of each day. 

IMG_1061.JPG

 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

- 1 John 3:18 

Would you join us in prayer for our trip? 

  

Photo Treasure Hunt - Orange

Since we are in October, a lot of people around the country are already seeing some great fall color. But here in Central California….not so much. However, I was able to find a few orange treasures to share with you.

marigold
marigold
post it note to do list
post it note to do list
candy corns and peanuts
candy corns and peanuts
tigger
tigger
pumpkins
pumpkins
candy corn flower pot
candy corn flower pot
peach tea
peach tea
fall leaves
fall leaves

Are you ready to join in on our weekly Photo Treasure Hunt? Here is what you need to know:

Link up by posting your blog post URL- not just blog URL

Link back to one of us (grab button if desired)

Visit other blogs and leave comment love.

Be sure to take note of next theme and start collecting more photos. Jill always has a fun transition photo, so be sure to visit

her blog

to see what the theme is for next week!

We reserve the right to remove any links that don’t fit the link up theme or that we find inappropriate

So over the last few weeks, we have been selecting colors as our theme. But this week, since Jill and I are both Compassion Advocates, we thought it would be fun to join in with a special photo treasure hunt that is going on right now on the Compassion blog!!

Just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about One Meal One Day, which is the focus of the photo scavenger hunt announced on the Compassion blog. We will be searching for photos which focus on blessings, waste, need, and advocacy.

refrigerator
refrigerator

Like this photo which shows the inside of my refrigerator.

So the Photo Treasure Hunt theme for next week is….One Meal One Day!! Be sure to hop on over to the Compassion blog to get all of the details (and if you post a link to your photos in the widget on the Compassion blog, you will be entered in a contest for prizes from Compassion!) This next link up will start on Tuesday, October 29th.

In the meantime, come back and share the blog link with your orange photo treasures below:

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October Compassion Share & Tell

Compassion Share & Tell

Last month, I introduced a new thing here on my blog, Compassion Share & Tell! Each month, I want to be able to share with my readers what I am sending to my sponsored and correspondence Compassion kids. In return, I am hoping that each one of you will share what you are sending to your Compassion kids! Also, this will be a great way to help us all be accountable to each other, making sure we write to our kids on a regular basis.

So here is what I put together for this month:

printable ornaments First, I printed off the printable Christmas ornaments from Compassion’s Second Friday Letter Writing Club Pinterest board. (This is a great board to follow! {wink!}) It took a bit of time to cut out all of the ornaments, six in each set.

ornaments Since I happen to have a laminating machine (found one really cheap at Costco), I put each ornament through the laminator, then cut them out….again. If you don’t have a laminator, you can just as easily cover these with clear contact paper.

Since we can’t send a lot of ribbon in our mailings, I did hole punch each ornament near the top, then tied a bit of ribbon to just one of the ornaments in each set. Then each set of ornaments went into a ziploc bag. On the outside of the bag, I placed a label. I print out a sheet of labels with my name and sponsor number, as well as my child’s name and sponsor number. This makes things go a little quicker when you are sending multiple items at one time.

Christmas letter Since I typed out my letters last month, I wanted to handwrite my letters this month. So I went on a search for some printable Christmas stationary. Here is what I wrote in each of the letters:

Dear Lina (or Abner, or Victor),

It is only October here, but by the time you receive this letter, it might be Christmas! For Christmas, our family likes to decorate a Christmas tree with many ornaments. I am sending some ornaments to you. These ornaments all have Bible verses to remind us that Jesus is our Savior.

I have a couple of questions for you:

  1. Do you have a favorite Christmas song?
  2. What special Christmas traditions are there in your country?

I am still spending a lot of time studying the book of Ephesians. One verse from last week was from Ephesians 4:7 - “But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”

You are a special person, created to do amazing things because God loves you!

And I love you too!

I stapled the ziploc bag to the back of each of the letters, folded the letters, and placed all the letters in a 6x9-inch manila envelope to mail. So for just a little bit of time, and a little bit of money, my October letters are on their way!

Are you ready to join in?

Here are the rules:

  • Link up by posting your blog post URL- not just the blog URL
  • Visit other blogs and leave comment love.
  • I reserve the right to remove any links that don’t fit the link up theme or that I find inappropriate

Blog hop will remain open until Friday, November 1, 2013, so be sure to come back and share your blog post with us at the Linky Tools below:

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Learning to trust in Him

When I was little, I used to have terrible nightmares. Many of them were very weird and didn’t make any sense (I am sure a shrink would have a field day with me!). But one dream I would have repeatedly was one where I was falling, not knowing if someone would catch me or if I would land softly somewhere. Have you ever had one of those dreams?

Sometimes I think our trust in God is kind of like that falling dream. We want to take that leap of faith and trust Him fully in all things. I don’t know about you, but I kind of like being in control of things. I like to have a list, I like things a certain way, I like to know what is going to happen next, I like to plan things out. But when I live this way, am I being fully surrendered to how God wants to work in my life?

Eduardo
Eduardo

Back in May, when we decided I would take the leap of faith to go on this Compassion trip to Mexico, we knew that I would be visiting Eduardo. Then we found out that his center was being closed and there was no way for us to meet up with him.

So over the last few months, I have been in contact with our trip leader, e-mailing him once a month to see if he knows what centers we will be visiting so we could choose another child to sponsor, because ‘I want to know who we will be sponsoring before we go on this trip’. But is it really so important for me to know this before we go?

No

Yesterday morning at breakfast, we discussed this very issue. God knows what child needs us, and He knows who we need to sponsor. I believe this is one of those times when I need to let go of trying to control the situation and allow Him to be in control. Because He has the perfect plan in place already. And that is where I can have peace that surpasses all understanding…

countdown
countdown

So we leave in 86 days…on a journey that God has already worked out all the details…praying I learn to trust Him more on this journey…