We have participated for several years in the Operation Christmas Child where a toy, school supplies, hygiene products such as soap and toothpaste are sent to children around the world as shoebox sized gifts. These are good, as the gospel story is presented at the time the kids receive the shoebox gift. This year we have been made aware of a great need for shoes, the health risks (hook worm and other parasites), foot deformation, and foot diseases that are caused from not having them. Feeling like the ability to send quality shoes that adjust for size and are durable with an average life span of five years, to help meet the shoe need of children for such a long time is an opportunity we can’t/shouldn’t pass up to bless, love on, and give to these children. It would be an overwhelming gift and blessing that I would wish someone would do for me if the roles were reversed. Our goal is to send a duffle bag (50 shoes) with a new friend that this endeavor has brought to our acquaintance, with covering the cost to get the additional bag to it’s destination so that it doesn’t impose any financial burden for her. All that being said we want to give you an opportunity to help too. theshoethatgrows.org gives you an opportunity on their website to get involved, you can help fill a duffle bag to Ecuador, Haiti, Ghana, Kenya, and other places around the globe. If you are family or a close friend who were wondering what you could get a family traveling the states with five people, one big dog, with only room for essential possessions all packed in a Toyota 4Runner for Christmas. Here you go! You can get 1 pair for $10 each, providing shoes for $2 per year for kids in need. You can contribute to the shoes going to Uganda which would be awesome by contacting us at owensendeavors@gmail.com or my messenger on Facebook. Yay! It isn’t the front lines (yet…I say that just for Donna’s sake. I love you Donna), but let us pray daily that The Lord will use us for his purpose.
Victorville California is our next “home”
Aiming to be a little closer to family for the holiday season, we have accepted our next assignment in the Western state of California. 97 miles from my grandparents home, I’m excited to announce, “Grandma Lawhead, I’ll be home for Christmas!!!!” Oh, and New Years too! 12/1-2/28.
It’s looking like California
We have been going through the process of applying for positions and interviewing, which is surprisingly not painstaking. I may be strange but I kind of like to interview. We have two offers now, both in California, so we should know in the next few days where we will head next.
Big Plans or Day of Rest? What Would Dave Ramsey Say?
We haven’t done nearly as much traveling and touristy things this assignment. We have still done a lot but have had to put the reins on a bit. As many of you know we like to follow (but could do a lot better) the “Dave Ramsey Plan” because of this we need to save up for things that we want or need and we work to keep a healthy emergency fund since we have no credit card to fall back on. We dug into our Emergency fund a bit (a lot more than I want to admit) in New Mexico, so we are trying to find a more realistic balance. Also there are signs besides the number on the odometer read out in our car that starting to save up for out next vehicle would be prudent. As we are down to only three weeks left here in Wisconsin there are a few things left that I would love to do. This makes the choice so hard, but it is going to cost a lot to drive back to Salem, be off for a week, and then drive on to our next assignment and get set up there. For that reason we will probably playing things pretty tight for the rest of the time here if we do go on another adventure it will be one of the many locations that have been recommended by patients that the main cost is the gas to get there and back or a nearby museum in Green Bay that is reasonably priced and highly recommended. I had initially thought it would be a good day to do one of those things, but honestly we were all tired and slept in and then Chad and Hannah needed to go grocery shopping while Caleb, Eve and I cleaned the house and by then it was noon. Caleb was dragging himself around at the thought of doing any work and so we decided that we didn’t need to go do anything fun today. We would just enjoy it as a day of rest. We had left overs for lunch, the kids finished the dishes and by then the house was looking pretty good. We made caramel apples, which was pretty fun.
We had a few movies we had checked out from the church library so the kids settled down first to watch Hermie and then two on the biblical account of the origin of man and the Big Bang theory not directly by Ken Ham but they are connected in some way to his ministry. To my amazement the two older kids were pretty fixated and interested in the topics verbalizing their thoughts on the topic. I fell asleep in the living room at the end of the movies. Chad woke me up for dinner. I was feeling a little rough, so Chad encouraged me to head to bed after dinner as he read Arabian Nights to the kids. I guess we needed a day of rest more than we thought. All in all I’m not sad we didn’t make it to the museum or national lake shores that are on our list. It was a good day and just what we needed. Goodnight.
Family Movie Night
Yay! Family movie night is finally here.
This years feature film was “Planet of the Apes”.
Chad ordered take out Chinese food as a special treat.
We made some yummy caramel pop corn to enjoy during the movie.
Hannah showed us her new balloon blower upper invention.
Then we all sat around the computer and enjoyed the show.
We opted for a second movie since we were having so much fun and the kids were being so enjoyable, so “Monsters University” won out over “Ice Age.”
Then the kids went to bed and Chad and I watched, “The Shop Around The Corner.”
Here a CC family, There a CC family, everywhere a CC family
I don’t think Neenah is the Classical Conversations (CC) Capitol of the world but we have run into several families in this area that are part of a CC group (homeschool co-op) there was the family at the library a month or so ago, the family at the Oshkosh Saturday market a while back, and last night I had an Abecedarian tutor as a patient, and the director of their program as a visitor. She was telling me how many CC groups they had in a 60 mile radius, I don’t remember the number but it was huge. There is four groups in Neenah alone and Neenah is a fairly small town. It was super fun to have her. We had a running conversation that continued every time I was in her room to check on her or help her about CC, homeschooling, Ken Ham, serving God in this fallen world, and life in general. I feel like I was at work all night getting blessed by my patients. Is that backwards? My cup overflows!
Okay, that didn’t work.
I’m never quite sure what to do with the one on one off one on shift schedule with night shift hours. If you are able to only rest a short time before your first shift, you can’t exactly stay up all day after you have worked all night and been awake the whole day before, but if you sleep you waste your one day off, and if you don’t sleep you will feel terrible all day. I have never really tried to just stay on my night shift hours on a day I was not working but it seemed like an option worth trying. So I got home from work, stayed up for a few hours had breakfast with the kids and walked the dog. Then I crashed hard, waking up around 3:00pm making it down stairs to join the party about a half hour later. We had planned to carve our pumpkin so we did that after dinner and after the kids went to bed and our blog was typed up and posted I settled down with a book. I had planned to go to bed around 12:00 or 1:00 but was still wide awake at those times, but by 3:00 I thought it best to get some rest. I fell asleep quickly but was awake with back pain by 8:00 am and was wide awake after that. I wanted to feel rested going to work but I couldn’t get back to sleep and didn’t want to have to pull another all nighter on five hours of sleep. I took melatonin. I talked with two recruiters and a friend off and on trying to get things lined up for our next assignment, which didn’t help me fall asleep but was necessary. I did get a little more sleep between1:30 and 3:45. Hopefully that will carry me. Maybe I should have stayed up until 6:00, I don’t know, I hate to miss a whole day with my family when it is a day off. Hmmm, not sure that it helped at all maybe I will stick to sleeping all day getting up for a few hours then sleeping all night, being awake the next 24 hours (all day and all night.) I wish I could figure out a way that worked well.
Fall Traditions and Halloween
I have had a general dislike for Halloween as long as I can remember. I remember the fear I felt as an elementary school aged child in the presence of adults I trusted dressed as creatures and characters that invoked fear. Seeing my authority figures and heroes causing fear gave me a sence of distrust and betrayal. Aren’t we supposed to love all others and treat other people the way we would want to be treated, not causing fear or nightmares that even knowing there was no harm intended could take away. Maybe my parents were being over protective but I have been so thankful my whole life for the safety and refuge they provided me during this time of year by creating other family traditions that were fun and fear free.
As a child we tried several different versions of the harvest party and they were pretty fun, but it still felt like participating in a holiday that served as an antagonistic reminder of the reality of hell that not enough people in the world today live with or take seriously.
I’m not sure when or whom had the brilliant idea to check out of school on Halloween and travel to the nearby town of New Meadows. We would swim all day in their out door hot springs warmed pool with a short break to laugh, tell stories, eat crockpot lasagna, and just be together. Awwwe finally, a halloween alternative that was truly an alternative.
As a non-parent adult I could pretty much just ignore the holiday, but as soon as Caleb came along Chad and I had to figure out what we were going to do about this fall elephant in our lives. Chad had been raised going to the kids country fun fair at his families church. We went when Caleb was a baby, it seemed harmless enough and there was no scary costumes. After a few years the country fun fair had evolved to another Halloween alternative the kind that made me physically ill, so on to plan B. Chad is a movie guy and there are so many good older movies that we wanted to watch as a family. “My Fair Lady,” “the Cat from Outer space,” “Family Band,” and “The Sound of Music.” That combined with fond memory producing homemade carmel popcorn has made for several years now of a fun new tradition. The one thing we do participate in is pumpkin carving. I loved carving over grown zucchinis as a child and the part of me that loves all kinds of art and the fun you have making it still wants to participate in that part of fall activities. We don’t do anything scary, and this year we wanted to do something related to the adventure we are on. After several ideas we decided on a globe.
Chad dug out the seeds and prepped the pumpkin for carving, Hannah, Eve, and I separated and cleaned the seeds so they could be roasted. Then Caleb and I worked on the carving while Eve and Hannah popped out the pieces and collected them for disposal. Chad roasted the seeds and by the time the pumpkin was done and lit, the seeds were toasty and tasty. I love watching the kids enjoy and admire the pumpkin. We may or may not have eaten almost all of the seeds already, only a handful is left and that is because Hannah asked us to save some more for her for the morning.
John 1:1-13 (NIV)
The Word Became Flesh
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. 6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God– 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
Nights
I am kind of relieved to be on nights even if it is only for a week and a half.
On the way to work as usual, I hoped for the best and braced for the worst, asking God for strength. I won the assignment lottery again. Not because I had the easiest patient, but I had one where I felt like I could make a big difference. It was a natural (no epidural) induction with a very hands on patient. Baby was really feeling the pressure and the provider rushed in with barely enough time to get a gown and gloves on as the baby delivered in the hands and knees position. So awesome! The patient was up quickly and after breastfeeding twice showered with a full bed change by two hours out. But as I was sitting down to finish all of my charting I got a call from the lead nurse telling me that as soon as my patient was all recovered I needed to report off to another nurse and go help at AMC. I had parked the car far away and again I was left wondering what lay ahead for me at AMC. Switching hospitals in the middle of the night is some how creepier than in the day. Following GPS through dark deserted streets knowing full well that I really had no clue where I was.
I was pleasantly surprised when I got to AMC and had a lite load. The time passed quickly and before too long I was headed home again.
This week we start doing all the leg work for our next assignment …I am eager to find out where we will be headed next.
Need in Africa, in Uganda
(Try to imagine if you were them…)
Click on the above link to read a recent blog posted by a family whom we got to know through our homeschool group now living in Uganda. Please take some time to read it. It is good to get this kind of perspective into the lives of people in other countries and continents. Let it effect your perspective on what you “need” and don’t need, and what we could do without in order to better be God’s hands and feet to those in need.
Owens Endeavors 