Birthday Girl....

I love being a grandma. I have 8 grandchildren, 7 boys and 1 girl.
My granddaughter is a treasure and a touch of feminine sweetness among all that testosterone.


Today is Sierra Brianna's 10th birthday.
She is a special girl who lives in a special place.

She has a generous heart.
When In Port Vila we went on a grandma date. I gave each child 5 vatu to spend. The boys promptly spent theirs on pop, candy, and chips, but Sierra after buying a small purse for herself saved the rest for something special.
This month she finally saved enough for a bush knife a surprise for David.
He was delighted.

Sierra lives in a place where the women do most of the work.
She is a little worker bee...
This girl can pluck a chicken, do
a load of laundry by hand,
babysit her brother or a village baby,
or make lap lap with very little complaining.

One day I found laundry hung high in the rafters of the garage.
"How did that get up there?" I asked her.
"Oh, I climbed up there and hung it. I thought it would dry faster," she said.

Mama Ellen gave me a chicken, and Sierra agreed to pluck it with the help of her friends if they could have all the insides to cook and eat.
No problem I assured her. She got the gizzards and I got my plucked chicken ready to cook.

Sierra is a loyal friend. She likes to play ball with her village friends, and dolls with her missionary friends.
She does cross-stitch, knits, and can make a skirt on the sewing machine.
Sierra is home schooled and loves to read.

She is a good cook and likes to bake. My granddaughter is a wonderful blessing.


Happy birthday Sierra....We love you and miss you....




At the market....
shopping.....she saved her money instead of spending it....
Waiting for the bus Sierra is reading....
turtle farm.....
Sierra with baby Grace.....
Plucking my skinny chicken....
using sand to scrub the black off the pots.....

Sierra and her village friends.

A Grandma's Lament....

I'm upset...


I love dolls.... and I assumed that my one grand daughter would love them, but last year she informed me that dolls were not her favorite toy...

Hmmm... I was disappointed, but happy that she had told me. I gave up the dream of buying Sierra the American Girl doll that I wanted to get her.

Then...On this trip one of her friends came to me, "I know what Sierra wants for her birthday," she said.

Hmmm...."tell me," I responded.

" An American girl doll," said her friend.

Really...." Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yes... just like the one I have but she wants one that looks like her."

Wha hoo..... I was excited, but I felt the need to confirm this with Sierra...

Smiling..."Yes," she said. then she showed me the catalog and asked which one I felt looked the most like her. We picked the perfect doll with light hair, no bangs, and brown eyes.

"Perfect".... she said.

Perfect....I thought.

During...the 3 weeks I was there, Sierra spent hours looking at that catalog.
" I can't wait for my birthday...I can't wait for my birthday," she would say with excitement.

When I got home, Grandpa said, " Get the doll." It took 2 weeks for it to arrive, but I had it in the mail by the beginning of July. Her birthday is July 28th.
shouldn't be a problem I assured myself.

Today...Michele wrote and said the box wasn't there yet and Sierra would have to be happy with the gifts that HAVE...arrived.
They probably would not be going back to town before her birthday.


What?....I am so sad.... Another one of those times that I cannot do anything to change the situation.
If I was there or she was here...she would have the doll for her birthday... It's never easy being a long-distance grandma.

I'm upset....

Yard Sale....

I have been so busy that I have not had time to write before now....
Had a birth and wedding in the family over the last couple of weeks.
I thought that I would share with you some pictures of the clothes sale that we had while I was in Vanuatu.
In February Michele wrote and let me know that the translation committee had decided to have a clothes sale to raise money for translation, and they wanted me to supply the clothes since I was coming. .
I know the need for clothes, but because it is so expensive to send them I rarely do it.
I would be allowed 4 -50lb bags on my international flight.
I collected clothes from varied places, and I want to thank those who so graciously gave.
I had men's, women's, and children's clothes in many sizes.

Flying between the islands my weight limit went way down so we packed it all in boxes and sent it on the boat. I had a hard time letting the clothes out of my sight after dragging them across the world. How I prayed they would not get lost or stolen. We ended up with about 7 boxes.

The sale was set for Thurs. and that morning we woke to fairly nice weather. That day was a break in a relentless week of rain.

Around noon the people began to gather on the hill.The women were dressed in their colorful best. People sat in groups laughing, talking and waiting. The scene reminded me of what I thought it probably looked like when Jesus taught and fed the 5000.

The women had cooked and we had fish stew, baked fish, lap lap, sugar cane, and a huge pot of cooked rice all for sale.

Joel could not decide if he liked what was going on or not. He had not been feeling good.
This is part of the translation team, Allen, Nettie, and David. They organized and ran the sale.
The people went through everything.
The women loved the baby clothes.
Some could not afford to buy, I can't tell you how hard it was for me not to just give clothes away.
In the end Erik took the time to read from the new translation and teach the people.
They listened intently.

The whole situation truly blessed me. The people were very thankful and they raised around $280 for translation.

His Grace Is Sufficient For Me....

We faced many obstacles when I was in the village, sickness, weather, spiritual blindness, but in all these things I saw the hand of God and his blessings.
Every time that I am with my kids and the other missionaries I am acutely aware of the way God seems to meet their needs. It is a blessing to watch God's power at work in their lives.

One verse that kept coming to mind over the week was in IICorinthians 12:8-10:
"Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.
And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness."Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake;for when I am weak then I am strong."

In this verse we see that Paul is longing for relief from his "thorn in the flesh", so that 3 times he asked God to remove it. I am not sure what Paul's thorn was but we see God refuse to remove it instead He tells Paul,
"MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU"
IS SUFFICIENT is a verb in the present tense / meaning that there is constant availability....So for Paul and Us, God's divine grace seen in Jesus Christ is constantly available and is enough. God would not take away the problem, but God would provide the grace to endure it.

"MY POWER IS PERFECTED IN WEAKNESS"
Our weakness as humans allows God's power to be more manifest.

I know for sure that when there was no doctor and my grandson was burning up, when the rain was coming in sheets and destroying the road in and out, when there was no one to call to remove a huge tree in the road, when the people walked in darkness and not light, these were the obstacles that allowed God's grace and power to shine through. He did not take them away, but He gave the grace to work through them.

The next verse is the hard part, I think.
"MOST GLADLY, THEREFORE,I WILL RATHER BOAST ABOUT MY WEAKNESSES, SO THAT THE POWER OF CHRIST MAY DWELL IN ME."

I am ashamed to admit that "MOST GLADLY" was not my first reaction, I came to it, but not my first reaction. Paul says He would not rejoice in the pain of his obstacle, but be content(have a proper mindset) in the power of Christ seen through it.
So it's not about the weaknesses or the insults, or the distresses, or the persecutions or the difficulties, but instead about Christ and Him glorified.
That is a tough call for me. Most times my focus was on the difficulties instead of recognizing that the power of Christ had the potential to be seen through the obstacle. I see that missionaries live with so many daily obstacles that their first reaction is prayer and then they face the obstacles expecting God to give His grace to deal with it, and He does.

With each obstacle God kept reminding me that HE was able. That HE was bigger than all the obstacles.
So as a POM, and a POM grandma I will rejoice in the struggles that my children face, and then I will pray that He will be lifted up in their lives.

Lord I Pray.....
That Your Grace will be sufficient for my missionary family, that Your power will be perfected in their weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in them. Help them and me to be content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, and with the difficulties;for Christ's sake; for when we are weak then we are strong.
so Lord that when each obstacle is gone through and the power of Christ is manifest, then You will be glorified. I Pray In Jesus Name....Amen

Please Pray....

Please pray for Mendy. She is a missionary on Tanna Island.
Sunday she broke her foot, and when she went to the hospital in Lenackel
the x-ray machine was broke so they sent her home with crutches and told
her to come back later in the week.

Pray...Pray....Pray...

The month before I left for Vanuatu Joel was so sick. He was unable to walk complained about pain, and had a high fever. He was finally diagnosed with a bone infection and it was serious enough that he was put into the hospital for a two week period so that he could have IV antibiotics. He was given another 2 weeks by mouth. Many of you prayed for him, and he came back from this bout of infection with God's healing touch. We were all very thankful.

Last time I saw him he was only 18 months old. I cannot tell you how delighted I was when at the sight of me , with a big smile, he said, " my gamma come to visit me", and then he crawled up into my lap.

What a Joy!! We bonded and he was my side kick the entire trip.

I was very happy that Joel had been given the care that helped him to get over the infection, but one of the hazards of being in the field and so far away from good medical care is that the diagnosis was not complete. The blood tests that would have shown the original cause of the infection seemed to have evaporated.

No one can say were they went or why they disappeared. The problem is if the infection ever comes again he will need to come back here for a more thorough care.

For the first 10 days, Joel was fine. He is a happy 3 year old,very active, and eager to express himself. He has a broad smile with tiny little white teeth.

He is strong willed and feisty. If he is not happy he will put his hands on his hips,scrunch up his face, and firmly putting his chubby feet on the ground say, "me not doing that."

he is using the third person right now when he talks about himself,
and then so that you understand just how upset he is he will follow up with the simple statement,
"you no good."

Whoa, I admit that when I first heard him say this I had to chuckle even though I know it is not something I would want him to say often or to certain people.

Michele reminded him that it was not okay to say this.
The problem is that it is common for the people in the village to say "you no good," when they are upset.
Try to explain this to a 3 year old struggling to learn 2 languages.

Once we reached the village, Erik had to turn around the next day and go back to Lenackel to get supplies that were coming in on the boat.
Normally this not a problem, but Erik ended up being gone for 2 days.
The next morning I was woke by the crowing chickens and Joel's mournful howling.

"Me legs hurt," he cried.
Well after what he had been through this simple statement caused us a little stress, but with examination we found that during the night he had broke out with a rash that consisted of big red ugly blisters in patterns of 4.

They were along the tops of his legs and butt.

As the morning went on he developed a high fever.

I have 8 grandchildren so that I am used to them getting sick, but I am also used to having access to a doctor who can diagnose the problem, and good medical care that can take care of the problem.

So what is a fearful worrying grandma to do?
Cuddle, Comfort, and Pray, Pray, Pray.....
having no other choice this is what I did for 3 days.

I came away from this situation recognizing a couple of things.

"God's grace is sufficient, and His power is perfected in weakness."
And My children need my prayers all the time. They are faced with obstacles every day all the time.

Joel got better as the week went on...but...it was hard to watch. Later in the week they took Joel to the doc in town, and he quickly diagnosed him with chicken pox, but this is not what he had. This week he has the same symptoms but from the waist up.