Letters!

"We just got a letter, we just got a letter, we just got a letter, wonder who it's from?" All the Compassion mail we have received over the last couple of weeks, made me think of the Blue's Clues song we used to sing during mail time. Blue's Clues used to be a favorite show around our home quite a few years ago...

...anyway, back to our letters! After waiting for over a year, a field inquiry started, and a lost letter, we finally received a letter from Lina!

 Dear Yvonne, God bless you! Today I would like to share a bit about what I've learned here at the project. My tutor has taught us that God is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is also the definition of love and our heavenly Father. Also, His Son Jesus is my Savior and faithful compassion. He is the best example of graciousness and love toward others. This month we focused on prayer and how it is a means of direct communication with God, and a weapon against Satan. The prayer of a righteous man can do much. We also reflected a lot on Jesus' sacrifice on the corss and how God has designed us perfectly. Don't you think it's wonderful the God loves us so much even though we don't deserve it?
Thank you so much for your kind letters and the support you provide me so I can belong to the program. Because of you my way of life has improved. Please continue to pray for my family's and my well-being. I leave you with this verse in Phillipians 4:14. I bid you farewell with love.

Then a couple of days later, we received a letter from Eduardo! I love how he drew the two of us in his picture! Here is what his father wrote in his letter:

Hello Yvonne, God bless you. Eduardo thanks you for the backpack and the car and the tennis table you gave to him. He is in the 3rd grade in kindergarten and is going to start in 1st grade in elementary school. His height is 1.24 meters (4.07 feet) and is learning to read and write. I like to write. He likes Ben 10 toys, bikes, Toy Story toys, and skates. I am so happy because you remember my birthday. I turned 6. Thank you Yvonne. God bless you.

 On the same day, we also received a letter from Victor! Here is what his letter said:

Dear Yvonne,
I greet you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank you for the letter you write me, for the stickers and the pictures as well. I always pray God to bless you. Please pray for me and my family and for my studies as well. I've had wonderful experiences with my parents; they support me in my soccer coaching lessons, along with my friends. I made a drawing in the back of the letter. Sincerely, Victor

I always love the drawings we receive with the letters!

(not sure why this one won't rotate the correct way...)

Then a few days later, we received a letter from Karan. His letter is on one of the new form letters about his house. Here are his answers, as well as a short letter:

My house is made of brick.
The roof is made of tin.
I get my drinking water from handpump.
We cook food using kerosene stove.
We use bulb for light at night.
Animals we have at home are hen.

Dear Yvonne,
I am writing this letter on behalf of Karan. He ways thanks to you. He pray to God for your good health. He like singing and He learn the praise songs.

Now I need to take some time to answer each one of these letters because I know how much these kids love getting letters from their sponsors! Have you received any letters lately?

What to do...what to do?

This morning I found myself in an unusual situation...I was home all by myself! This doesn't happen very often, and at first, I wasn't really sure what I should do!

Well, today's item on our 30 day photography challenge was to take a picture of a bad habit...seriously? How are you suppose to photograph a bad habit? Well, I do have a bad habit that I guess I could photograph...clutter...

 This is an area of my bedroom that has been sorely neglected and has needed to be de-cluttered for quite some time. It is one of those things that is on my mind to clean up, but just doesn't occur during the day since I don't spend a lot of time in my bedroom during the day. After spending about an hour cleaning things up, the area now looks like...

 ...this! Ahh, so much more organized! It is not at all perfect yet, still piles on the shelves that I need to go through, but looks so much more inviting! Looks like Kelsey will be gone again for a few hours one day next week, that will give me a chance to work on another clutter pile somewhere else in the house...of which I have just a few... :o)

 Then I spent the next hour listening to a podcast for our Sunday School lesson. We are going through a book called Fundamentals of the Faith by John MacArthur. Each week we take time during the week to listen to a podcast for the lesson and complete the lesson in the book. Then on Sunday morning, we take time in the group to discuss the lesson. We are about half way through the book...

Pinterest! I will be one of the teachers for the upcoming VBS at our church, so I created a board for some space ideas to use. Here is one that I think will be great to send to our Compassion kids too...

Source: quinceandquire.typepad.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

Do you ever have time alone at your home? And what fun things have you found on Pinterest lately?

How many books are you currently reading?

This is my current reading stack...yes, that means I am reading 4 books right now. There is a system to my reading madness which I will share with you.

1. Bible - this is the most important book for me to read. Since becoming a Christian 13 years ago, it has been the book I try to start my day with.

Since starting the Hello Challenge back in January, I have been working on being up before the kids so that I can start each day reading my Bible and soaking in His truth.

Along with my Bible reading, I have been working through a study of 1 Peter this summer. This study has challenged me to not just read His Word, but to observe the truths, promises, and commands are in each passage. Looking up key words in the original language has been my favorite part of this study though.

2. Christian non-fiction - after I finish my Bible reading and study in the morning, if I have time before the kids are up, I like to read at least one chapter in some type of Christian non-fiction book. These have ranged from homeschooling books, marriage books, raising kids books, learning more about extreme poverty books, etc. These are books I like to have in our home library as reference books when I need them.

3. Biography - a few years ago, since my kids are older, we implemented quiet reading time after lunch. Boy has it changed how my afternoons look! During the school year, we are constantly moving from one lesson/activity to the other in the mornings. Then after lunch, there always seemed like we were busy doing something. By taking a break after lunch, this caused all of us to slow down and be quiet for even a half an hour each afternoon.

During this afternoon time, I usually like to read some type of biography. There are so many people that have lived before us that have made great impacts on our world. I feel it is important for us to take the time to learn from them.

4. Classics and fiction - after eveyone has gone to bed for the evening, I love to pick up a classic title or some work of fiction to devour for a while. I usually don't buy many fiction titles since I read through them too quickly, but I do love to add classics to our home library.

Our local library does seem to stock quite a few Christian fiction books, so when our CBD catalog comes in the mail, I look through it to see what titles our library has in the system. A few authors that I enjoy are Francine Rivers, Beverly Lewis, and Karen Kingsbury.

So, how many books are you reading?

Can you survive on $1.25 a day?

Nearly 1.3 billion people live in extreme poverty everyday. Have you ever had the chance to experience what it feels like to walk in their shoes?

By playing Survive125, you have the chance to make some of the same decisions that people living in extreme poverty have to make everyday to try to survive. Do you live in the slums or the village? Do you pull your son out of school once every 3 days to get clean water that is a 3 hour round trip walk or drink dirty water? Do you pay thugs that are threatening you or report it to the police? Can you even imagine making these types of decisions as you try to work and provide for your family?

I took the challenge and only made it to day 21. Are you willing to take the challenge? If you take the challenge, be sure to let me know your results in the comments. Share this challenge with your friends!

There are many who believe that the poor will always be with us. I don't believe that is so. Through the work of Compassion, I believe we can help to make a difference in the lives of children living in extreme poverty. Take the time to watch this video and be challenged to believe that we can make a difference!

Drawing and Photo Challenge

On a morning perusal of Pinterest this morning, I found a couple of pins that I thought would be fun to do with Kelsey. The first one was a 30 Day Photo Challenge. I love to take pictures and Kelsey has been having fun taking pictures with her iPod, so we got started right away this morning on the first assignment...Day 1 - Self Portrait:

This was hard for me to do because I am not the type of person who takes pictures of myself with my own camera, in fact, I don't think I have ever done this! :o)

Kelsey, trying to find the 'right lighting', where do these kids get these ideas? :o), decided to get on top of her playhouse to get 'just the right picture'... :o)

Kelsey really likes to draw, so another pin that I found is for a 30 day drawing challenge. Day 1 drawing is a drawing of yourself. An artist I am not, so here is my best attempt at drawing myself holding a camera and a book.

I thought it would be nice at the end of the thirty days to have something nice to keep all our photos and drawings in, kind of a way to remember this fun project in the future. So while we were at Hobby Lobby today, we found these sketch books. We will probably add doodles and other embellishments to the pages as we work through these 30 day challenges.

Want to join us for the challenges?

Summer Monday at Home

“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.” - Jane Austen

Monday is usually a home day for us. Not really sure why, but it has just always seemed to work out that way. After a busy weekend, Monday just has always been a day to get the laundry done and stay close to home.

Matthew started his orchard job today, so we won't be seeing him at home most of the day for the next few weeks. He drives a tractor during the apricot harvest. They start early in the morning (about 5:30am!) and are usually done around 2pm. He is usually pretty hot and tired by the time he gets home.

So today, Kelsey and I stayed home and were able to do a few fun things together...

Making and spending more money than we will ever see

Homemade Snickerdoodles...yum!



It is Monday, so there was laundry to be done



No sense of baking all the cookie dough, so we flash froze some to be baked later



Letter from Lina arrived!



We started taking all the pictures off of the project boards from Matthew's graduation...



...and started adding them to the album for him to keep

This letter was an extra surprise today! There was a letter addressed to Kevin from Compassion. There was nothing on the front of the letter indicating that it might be a letter from his correspondent child, Murimi, from Kenya. Back in November, we put some items together for Murimi and sent them to Kenya with our friends who are over there this year working with Agape Children's Ministry. They dropped the package off at the Compassion country office to be delivered to Murimi.

Along with a nice long letter, we received these 3 photographs of Murimi! The first picture shows Murimi holding the gallon size ziploc bag of items we sent over. The next picture shows Murimi wearing the t-shirt and shorts we bought for him and he is holding the 2 Hot Wheels cars that were in the package. The last picture at the bottom shows Murimi holding the snowman picture the my husband made for Murimi as well as the paper snowflakes on his head! What a special treat this was!

Did anything special happen on your Monday?



Be a Blessing

One of the best things about being an advocate with Compassion International is the opportunity I have to help find sponsors for children living in extreme poverty.

Right now, I have 4 children who would love to be blessed by someone who will sponsor them, pray for them, and write to them regularly. Would you like to be that person for one of these children?

 Kornelius is 9 years old and lives in Indonesia. He lives with his mother and helps her by washing clothes. He enjoys playing with cars and telling stories.

 Dede is from Ghana, and she lives at home with her parents, as well as one sibling. Her household chores are running errands and cleaning. Dede likes to play house, run, and play group games.

 Yancy lives with her mother and one sibling in El Salvador. For fun, Yancy enjoys art, playing with dolls, and running. She helps at home with gardening, making beds, and running errands

Nithin lives in India with his parents and one sibling. He helps at home by carrying water, washing clothes, and making beds. His favorite activities are ping pong, volleyball, and singing. Nithin has also been waiting 7 months for a sponsor.

If you would like to sponsor one of these children, please reply to this post or send me an e-mail at kymk99 (at) yahoo (dot) com.