While we are gone for 9 days, my good friend, Denise, has set up a blog for our adventures in the Dominican Republic. We aren’t quite sure how often she will be able to blog/post pictures while we are there, but we would love for you to check it out every few days to see if we’ve updated! Please click here now to check it out!
Archive for July, 2012
25
Jul
12
Dominican Republic blogging…
As we prepare to go to the Dominican Republic in 3 days, we have been praying together each night this week, as a family, for the many requests that surround our trip. I learned a few summers back, when reading A Praying Life: Connecting With God In A Distracting World
Anyway, last night, we prayed in the early evening. James prayed for team unity, Ella prayed for travel safety, Rilyn prayed that she would make friends there, and I prayed for the rice and beans we are bringing would be multiplied like the miracle Jesus did from the boy’s lunch of 2 fish and 5 loaves to feed 5,000.
During these summer nights, James has been watching a cartoon called Avatar with the kids each night before bed. It’s not every night, but it’s most, and they love watching it together. After we prayed, I told them it was time for them to get ready for bed.
Ella promptly said, “Ugh! That prayer stuff wasted our time!”
Now before you think what an ugly thing to say, we adults think the same thing all the time, we just have the social graces to know NOT to say it out loud.
Ella wanted to watch Avatar, and because we had prayed, she thought that took up all her TV time with daddy. (Which by the way, we were going to let them watch Avatar after they got ready for bed, but because of that comment, they didn’t.)
We immediately talked to Ella about her heart. Luke 6:45 “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” What did that comment reveal about her heart? She loves Avatar more than praying for our mission trip? She believes that prayer isn’t that important or powerful? She feels she deserves the “comfort” of watching TV? Now I know she is only 6 1/2, but these “adult” conversations lay the groundwork for future conversations when the stakes are a lot higher (teenage years!).
I can’t wait to talk to our girls about this trip in 2 weeks to show how powerful our prayer was!
21
Jul
12
lake travis
Yesterday, we took a day off to have, what we are calling, the “1st annual adults only lake day!” Our good friends, the Moss’, took out their boat on Lake Travis so we could water ski, tube, wake board, and boat on in to Hula Hut for dinner! Such a fun afternoon with great friends!! Next Friday, all six of us, plus our kids, will be traveling to the Dominican Republic together!
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| James wake boarding for the first time! |
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| me water skiing |
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| cool shot of James’ water skiing |
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| James is so good at water skiing, he tells us when he is done skiing (instead of just falling).
He is giving us the thumbs up that he is done and drops the handle! |
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| James tubing |
James asked Eddie to try and get him off the tube, so as Eddie drove the boat crazy, James flipped…and lost his bathing suit to his ankles!
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| flipping… |
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to capture that shot because his trunks fell down as the bottom of the tube was facing the camera and conveniently covering James’ full moon! 😉
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| James mooning the house behind him |
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| Hula Hut! |
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| Pennybacker bridge on Lake Travis with my girls! Jen, Denise, and me! |
19
Jul
12
summer
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Asher has a thing for water in his face…he LOVES it!!
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| I think I’ll stand right here… |
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| so I can get dumped on!!!! |
And just for fun-grandma bought Asher and cousin Caden matching Jake costumes from Jake and the Neverland Pirates show. Cousin Caden’s birthday is coming up, and his party theme is from that show…grandma just couldn’t resist. Personally, I couldn’t even tell if that was a wig Asher was wearing! 😉
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11
Jul
12
16 days!
We (me, James, Rilyn, and Ella) are leaving in 16 days for the Dominican Republic! We will be staying around Puerto Plata, on the northern coast. I wanted to share with you a few prayer requests and what we will be doing there!
We will be partnering with Makarios and staying at their facilities to work at their school for the week. They are running a small summer school there, and each week they have a different grade level of kids come through. The week we are going, (which happens to be the last week of their summer school), we will be working with 50 kids entering 3rd grade and our theme will be “food”.
We are working with Rilyn and Ella to memorize John 6:35 in Spanish during these next few weeks so they can help the students memorize it while they are there.
“Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry. Whoever believes in me will never go thirsty.” John 6:35
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Monday-Wednesday mornings, we will be helping the students- doing crafts, playing games, etc. Then every afternoon we will be going out into the surrounding villages, meeting with the families that send their kids to the school. Makarios wants to establish a trust in the villages-that they are there to stay, and want to help them. They are sending us out each afternoon as representatives of the school. There will obviously be a language barrier, so mostly we will be playing games with the kids and adults in the villages (we were told to brush up on our checkers game!). Play is the universal language!
On Thursday, we will be having an “end of the summer school” carnival which we will be running, (when I say “we”, there will be 35 of us going from our church), and all the families in the villages are invited!
Friday is a free day/beach day, and our family will be meeting the child we sponsor from Compassion! Her name is Darianny, and she is 7 years old. What a blessing to be able to meet her!
Specific prayer requests are:
-Travel
-Team unity-35 people is a LOT of personalities (and 8 of those are children age 6-9!) Satan will no doubt try to cause discord.
-For our children, who will for the first time, experience extreme discomfort (no air conditioning, not “normal” food/beds, language barrier, seeing extreme poverty, etc.)
-Who am I kidding? All the adults will need prayer for persevering through discomfort too.
-our hearts to be softened and moldable to what the Lord is wanting to show us/teach us through this trip!
-that we will be the hands and feet of Jesus to others there whether that is serving the villagers or the staff at the Makarios school.
-no one gets sick. Especially cholera.
-and for Asher. He will be loved on by both sets of grandparents during the 9 days we are gone, but it will still be hard on the little guy (and us!).
When I get home (August 4th), I will no doubt be posting all about our trip on here!
06
Jul
12
July 4th!
We spent the 4th with family at my parent’s house for lunch and swimming.
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After swimming, we drove to College Station where we could light fireworks! I wanted to have some fun with my camera, so we lit the sparklers!
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| Rilyn, Ella, my mom, my dad |
Ella kept her fingers in her ears most of the time the fireworks were going off!
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| flash bomb! |
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Asher wanted in on the sparklers too, so daddy helped him make an “A” for Asher!
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James wanted to give me a message too!
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After our fireworks, we drove over to George Bush Library to watch the BIG show!
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I love watching my kids watch the fireworks!
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05
Jul
12
my first wedding!
Well, it happened! My first wedding shoot! To see more, click here!
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the paquettes 