Husband raised the dead!

My husband amazes me. He is so very talented. We had been thinking about each of us getting a puppet to add to the Nursing Home Ministry. Our Puppet team (Ed and Anne Kelm), go North for the summer and the residents miss them.

As we were walking around the Classic Car show in the Downtown Circle, I looked in a window of a store and they had a generous display of 28 inch full bodied puppets. Ken opened the door. We walked around and around looking at all the puppets. They had clown puppets, girl puppets with different color hair, boy puppets with different color hair, sculpted puppets dressed in motorycle clothes, and puppets dressed as brides, doctors, pirates etc. We walked around and around wondering if any of these puppets would be suited for us.

THEN my husband put his arm in one, and IMMEDIATELY the puppet came to life! My husband changed voices and he talked with this puppet as if he had known him for years. It was truly remarkable! He had chosen the Grandpa puppet.

His decision helped me to know which puppet I should get. I certainly needed the Grandma, so we are a couple. This will be sweet as we minister in a Nursing Home every Sunday afternoon. The winter puppet team has young children puppets, so in the Summer the change to senior citizens will be good.

We left the store with Ken's puppet in his hand, and together they finished walking among the classic cars. Someone even took a picture of them. He was so comical!

The store owner said he would have to order the grandma and it will be here in a few days.

Now we need to find CD - Christian music........song by old folks instead of children!

ANYWAY, the point is.......our lives are basically without meaning and purpose until the day we receive Christ. When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, we become NEW CREATIONS! We truly know what it means to live. So much like the visual I saw before my very eyes tonight. One minute the puppet was lifeless amid many other lifeless puppets, and the next minute he is full of life and personality......and he will be used of the LORD.

[Anyone have any unused puppets, send them our way! Hubby is good with marinettes too :)]

GATOR Encounter!

My husband and I TRY and take Monday as OUR day. It is our day of TOGETHERNESS. You might call it: OUR DATE DAY. We like to jump on our motorcycle and head somewhere just to be together and enjoy FLorida. Well yesterday's date had some EXCITEMENT.

On our way back from our DATE DAY (the beach in Fort Pierce), we had a scary encounter. As we were traveling along at the speed limit (on our motorcycle) Ken pointed ahead. There was a HUGE alligator starting to cross the road in front of us. His HUGE head and front "legs" were already past the white line into our lane. So we slowed down. We could not cross to the left lane because that is where he was heading.......we could not run INTO him....and we could not go behind him as a huge part of him was still off the shoulder. So we slowed down in our right lane and contemplated what to do.

IN THE MEANTIME, a semi truck driver had come up behind us, in our lane, did not notice that we slowed down....and didnt see the alligator (which was probably no threat to him, as it was to our bike). He was barreling down on us. I mean he was VERY close.

The truck driver FINALLY did SEE us and he went over to the farthest extent of the right lane to avoid us.

Apparently the alligator SAW the truck, opened his mouth wide and did a U-turn back off the road, so we were able to go over to the left lane and let the truck barrel through.

It was THEN he saw the alligator and figured it out. He then slowed down as he too probably realized what could have happened.

When we were side by side, we (Ken and I on our motorcycle, and the truck driver) all smiled and held out hearts as we each understood the danger we had all been in.

GOD PROTECTED US and we thank HIM.

Other than that, it was a GREAT day of togetherness.

Mother's Day

As a mother, I am well aware of the pain Mother's Day can bring. Most of us, mothers, are aware of the cards with the amazing Hallmark words of love and devotion that go way past the reality of life. As much as wordy Hallmark cards are painful, we also know the pain of when our children forget to send a card of any kind. People may ask, "Did you hear from your children?" Mother's Day can be a very lonely day, a refective day, a painful day.......unless you are still blessed to gather around the table with your children. Those days are precious memories.

As a Counselor, I am well aware of the pain that Mother's Day brings to those dear women who will never be able to carry a child, or have lost a child. That kind of pain is accentuated as crafts are done in schools and sunday schools for children to bring their moms. Accentuated at mother and daughter events. It is a painful time. I have known ladies who stay home from Church on Mother's Day because it is so painful when the Pastor has all the mothers stand to honor them.

As one whose mom went to Glory this year, I am now aware what it is like to no longer have a mother to honor on this day. I regret the times when I flippantly bought her a card, just because it was mother's Day. I didn't want her to get a card from my sister and not me. I had the honor of going through her scrapbooks after her death, and SAW how she SAVED each card over the years. Mother's day will no doubt have tears for me this year, as I still terribly miss my mom. My tears will join the many thousands who for one reason or another will cry on the day we call Mother's Day.

As a Pastor's wife, I see our Church filled with elderly women who week after week sit alone in their pews. Their children do not attend here, or anywhere. Just yesterday a lady was sharing about how much that hurts her. Her son KNOWS she can no longer drive herself to Church, and yet he didn't even come to visit her, let alone offer to drive her to the Church she LOVED to attend. He may indeed give her a Mother's Day card, but driving her to Church would have meant alot more to her.

I made an insert to put into our bulletin this week. It is an invitation that our widows can give to their children as a special invite to Church on Mother's Day. It may not be successful, but we are always trying to strengthen family relationships, as well as to draw people to God.

If you are a woman......I applaud you and want you to know that you are a wonderful woman because you are created in the image of God! He has a great purpose for your life. You have a great future ahead of you, as you seek HIS will for your life.

Prison Ministry Decorations

We minister in a small Church and the way the economy is right now, we have next to nothing in the budget for decorations. My husband and I are passionate towards missions, so as I thought about our upcoming Missions Conference I knew God would help us out.

Shortly after we secured our Missionary Speaker, Toby Cribbs, who serves the LORD in jails and prisons in TN/Ga area...I knew the decorations would be challenging, and nothing I could use from last year's decorations. Within days GOD gave me a vision of something that I was not at all sure if I could create, but I kept HIS vision before me, and plugged away the best I could in a frugal manner.

I gathered faces from the internet, mostly by looking at men's hairstyles. I printed them out and cut around the faces. Then I had a box of gloves left over from caring for my home under hospice. I filled them one glove after another. My daughter in law and grandchildren helped with that too when they were here. Then I bought poster board for their shirts, drew them, cut them out and printed a Bible reference on each shirt. Put them all together with paper chains on their wrists. I was amazed that it looked like it was going to work (although keep those gloves on the window was not an easy task).

I noticed that all of our prisoners were bound and that did not represent the FREEDOM that anyone can obtain in Christ. That is when GOD gave me the second VISION. He told me to find a song, and while we were singing it, to have various people cut the chains off the decoration prisoners. So the one song our people know well is: Victory in Jesus. So my hubby (the Pastor) gave directions to the people how they are all bound, and in the name of Jesus they can be free. So as we sang the song, various brave souls left their seats and walked to the windows. One by one the chains were broken!

It was a powerful service! I am so grateful to GOD who helps us in the big things and the simple things like DECORATIONS. And when GOD gets involved with decorations, HE turns it into something POWERFUL. I am so awed at GOD.

My Mother's Scent

March 23 was my mom's birthday. She would have been 86. She went to Glory six months ago. I miss her more than I could ever pen. She not only gave me life, but she showed me JESUS. I am forever thankful.

BUT what I wanted to share with you is how absolutely COOL God is!

Yesterday in my mom's honor, I decided to wear HER perfume. I wear TABU most everyday of my life. My mother wore NAVY the last few years of her life. I keep her bottle of NAVY in a special box in my room which also has her last night gown and the DVD of her service, etc. SO I put on her perfume all day. I noticed that it didn't particularly blend with my chemistry, like it did hers, but I wore it all day anyway.

THEN I went to the little devotional book that mom always read: OUR DAILY BREAD. On March 23 the title was SIGNATURE SCENT. It mentioned how certain smells will cause us to think about certain times in our lives, or certain people. For sure NAVY caused me to think of my mom. The devotional let us to Exodus 30: 34,35 which talks of a special recipe for a fragrance ONLY allowed in the tabernacle for worship. A scent that GOD and the people would KNOW meant worship was going on between the Holy of Holys and humbled human beings. This fragrance was used NO OTHER place, but for worship in the Tabernacle.

THEN the devotional took us to 2 Cor 2: 14,15 where the New Testament teaches that WE, Believers in Jesus, are a sweet fragrance that is acceptable (pleasing) to God. God uses Christians (me and you) as His "signature scent" to the world. What kind of smell am I giving off to the world? Do I draw people to Christ, or do I turn them away? Are people drawn to the Christ in me, or do they run? WOW...what a thought!

I felt so GOD HUGGED when I read this and realized that GOD had placed it in there TODAY for me, on my mom's birthday. NAVY will always remind me of my mother, but she would want me to boldly wear and be the sweet fragrance of my life that is pleaseing to my Lord Jesus.

GOD is so awesome in HIS ways to HUG us on days when we need HIS special touch. If it was on any other day, that devotional would not have had the same meaning, as it had on my mom's birthday, when I was wearing her scent in honor of her.

I am so thrilled that GOD loves like that! His hugs are so sweet, so powerful, and so personal.

What a mighty God we serve!

Raindrop Grief

My precious mother went to Glory on Sept 14, 2009. She and I were very close. I find tears come without warning and just now starting to have more control.

Yesterday my husband and I went for a motorcycle ride. I had never seen the sky so blue, nor the clouds so very white. My eyes were drawn to the skies, then tears would come, and I would struggle to wipe them away.

Dark Clouds were ahead and at one point my husband pulled over and suggested we put on the raingear.

So I put on the rain gear, which included a face shield.

It was not long and the rain began to pound against my face shield. It did not touch my face, but my vision was blurred by the many raindrops on my shield. Everything I looked at, I viewed through rain drops on my shield. For miles rain filled the ditches beside us and flowed down the country roads - but my husband continued to take our motorcycle in the direction of home. I knew that soon the sun would come out again, the rain gear would come off, and I would see life without the rain dropped shield.

It became very clear to me that it was a picture of my grief.

My grief is great and the tear drops are heavy, even flooding my pathway...but with GOD, I will keep moving and HE will dry my tears and brighten my path.

This is the way life is suppose to be. We are suppose to loose our parents, they are not to loose their children. We all agree that is the way life is suppose to be, so I will walk through this and hopefully become better because of it.

Double Blessing!

I Want to share a Double Blessing that occured today:
_________________________________________________
BRIEFLY: I met a new deaf lady today! AND.....
I met a hearing man who knows CUBAN Sign Language!
__________________________________
Here's the story:

Ken and I went along with Captain Ed and Granny Ann to 'Royal Care' where they were scheduled to minister to the residents with their puppets and illusion lessons. Captain Ed had asked Ken to go along as his 'sound man'. I went along for the ride and could see Minnie.

Our dear friend Minnie is still a resident there while getting therapy. She told me "That lady" (pointing to a lady in a wheelchair down the hall) "is deaf". I never know what a person means by that ....is the person deaf because of age, or do they know sign language? But I turned to that lady and signed: "Are you deaf?" She signed back with enthusiam: "YES!" So we started chatting in the hallway while I heard Captain Ed begin his program. The deaf lady could not come down as she had to be 'swing weighed' soon and then put to bed - her time for being "up" was over. She fractured her hip and is still not to the walking stage. She was happy as the man had just hooked up CC to her TV for her! I started walking back to where Captain Ed, Granny Ann and Ken were giving the program........

THEN one of the workers there (all seem to be foreign) asked me if I was going to be here for a few minutes, that he would bring down his friend who worked with the deaf in Cuba, but is here now in the States and doesn't know much English or any american sign. I said 'SURE'. So he brought him over to me. A nice young man. We had fun showing each other the differences in our sign languages. I could see how his made sense too (as far as an aerial picture) but was totally different from ASL. I asked him if he went to Church anywhere. He said "SDA". I said "GOOD, then you are free on Sundays to visit our church!" I told him: "Come and you can learn ASL by watching me". He said, "HOW can I do that without knowing English?" I said, "by WATCHING like deaf people do. YOu will SEE the picture and you will pick up a few words, and God will help you to make the connection. It will be great way to pick up sign language as well as english".

I gave him my email address, and directions to the Church. I told him my name was Bonnie. I remembered from being in South America that it is a hard name (and so is Ken) for spanish speakers to say correctly. So I told him: "You can call me Susanna" (my middle name is Sue). HE smiled as big as Texas and said, "OK Susanna!"

When the program was done, Captain Ed, Granny Ann, Ken and I were standing by the car talking as we loaded up and this young man was in his car. He pulled up to us, looked at me and said in his broken english: "I be there Sunday!" And in my broken spanish I said, "and your wife?" and he said "YES and my wife."

What fun! I got to practise my broken spanish with his broken english and exchange two different sign languages - and we will see how the LORD uses this to HIS honor and glory! Isn't God goooooood!

So on the way home, I told Pastor Ken (my hubby) that he may be called Pastor Carlos (since 'Ken' is hard to say) and we smiled. [We thought God was going to have us use those names for years in South America - so it is nice to at least hear them now with that lovely spanish accent]. I teased Ken and said, YOu are going to surprise them with a copy of the sermon in spanish arent you? He said I just may do that!

Life is sure interesting. Interesting indeed.
Nothing boring about life or being in ministry!

HUG
Bonnie