Happy Thanksgiving

Today I am thankful for my brother and sister-in-law who volunteered to host the Herzog thanksgiving dinner at their home.  That meant I could sleep in!  No getting up early this year to stuff the turkey and get it in the oven.  This is the first year I haven't cooked a turkey in ??? years.  So long, I really can't remember.  And we still got to bring home the carcass for some yummy turkey soup! 

Here's some of the clan just getting ready to dish up the food.  21 were in attendance.

Since I wasn't cooking turkey or hosting the event, I got to experiment with a new dessert recipe, a mocha cheesecake.  It was a hit for the chocolate lovers.  And because there was so much dessert to choose from, I even got to bring half of it home :).

This is Paul Herzog, Steve's dad, the patriarch of the family.  We are thankful he was able to be with us and sit at the head of the table.  This has been a challenging year for him healthwise.

Stewart and Missy, our hosts.  Stewart is Steve's youngest brother.

The Fam.  My sister wanted a family photo for the Christmas calendar.  I think this may have been the first time all four of us have been together since I moved to Idaho last January.

Hope your Thanksgiving was just as blessed!

Aarrrgh!

This has been a busy week at YWAM Idaho with students and staff from 3 schools all here at the same time.  The Backpackers DTS returned from Mongolia and N India for a week of debrief.  It was the last week of the lecture phase for both the Pioneering school (SOAP) and the Frontiers DTS.  Graduation for the Backpackers and SOAP was last night.  Now almost everyone (including us) is leaving town for the Thanksgiving holiday.  The Frontiers DTS will reconvene a week from now and fly out to India on Tuesday, Nov. 30th.

On Wednesday night Steve and I hosted a going away party for three of our staff.  Becky Davis is leaving Dec 14th.   She is transferring to the Colorado Springs NSI (Network for Strategic Initiatives) YWAM base.  Thomas and Lacey Gray are leaving sometime in January.  They plan to get some formal education to further their missions preparation.  Even though they aren't leaving yet, a good chunk of students and staff won't be here when they do, so we thought we'd better celebrate them now.

Becky is our resident hippie, complete with dreads that she acquired in Costa Rica last winter while she was attending YWAM's Children At Risk school.  She and boyfriend, Duane, enjoyed dressing up as pirates for Halloween, so she thought it would be fun if we all came as pirates, hippies or gypsies to the party.

Those who dressed up.

 Becky and I have shared the administrative duties in the office.  I will dearly miss her.  She will be an asset to whatever YWAM base she is a part of. 

 Thomas and Becky with their original cards from Steve.

 Thomas, Lacey and Becky.

 Big Isaac Meyer (center) with the twins, Wesley and Isaac.

 Some of the DTS students chillin.

 Steve making his presentation to Thomas and Lacey.

 Some of the gang at the Depot.

Steve gave Duane official permission to take one staff person away to CO Springs.  That is his home base.  He was here in Idaho to help staff the SOAP.  Becky was a student in the SOAP and love blossomed.  Turns out Duane leads the N India Iniative (strategizing and networking to reach N India with the gospel).  Becky will be a perfect partner.  She has always wanted to end up in India eventually anyway.

First Houseguests

We have been enjoying sharing our home this week with two other couples.

Ryan and Debbi Smith from Phoenix, AZ, are here to help staff our Frontier DTS.  They've been living out at the camp until last Sunday when operations were finally closed down for the season.  Ryan and Debbie are pioneering YWAM in Phoenix.  They attended our pioneering school a year ago and YWAM Idaho is their "sending" base.

They have been a tremendous blessing to us this fall.  Debbi has been manning the kitchen for both fall schools, feeding about 30 people three meals a day.  Ryan has been a tremendous asset to the camp improvement project.  He is a licensed electrician and has been instrumental in laying the new electrical lines out at the camp, along with digging trenches, laying pipe, fixing vehicles, etc, etc.  Both of them have wonderful servant hearts.

Here's Debbi in the camp kitchen.

Ryan laying new water pipes 6 ft down.

 The second couple is Bill and Carolyn Allen from Colorado Springs.  They work with YWAM NSI (Network for Strategic Initiatives).  They are here to do a debrief with the staff and students of the Backpackers DTS who just returned from Mongolia and N India.  Their specialty is Member Care.  Working in a foreign country and living in close quarters with the same people for three months can be a stressful (though rewarding) experience. Bill and Carolyn are here to help the students and staff process what they have just gone through and resolve any interpersonal issues that may have arisen.

The Backpackers DTS and SOAP students will graduate this Friday evening.  We will also be praying over the Frontier DTS students and staff who will  be leaving for India the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. It's a busy week here at YWAM Idaho.  It's been kind of fun to have three schools here at once.  We had 41 people at our base meeting Monday morning, which is probably a record for us.

"Like A Deer in the Headlights"

I've heard this expression all my life, but only just experienced the real thing  last night.  I was going 45 on an unlit road and, suddenly, there he/she was.  That deer looked pretty surprised and just stood there for a few seconds, but finally turned and meandered off the road.

I guess that is why Idaho drivers don't dim their brights--at least 75% of them. (There's also elk and free range cattle to worry about hitting.) I was driving home from Boise last evening in the dark and found it quite annoying.  Especially when you're on a curvy mountain road.  When you're curving left and the opposing driver doesn't dim his brights, you can't even see the white line on the right side of the road.

I finally solved this problem by letting the guy behind me (with his headlights and fog lights on bright) pass me by and then I just maintained an even following distance behind him.  His lights were bright enough for the both of us and whenever an opposing driver didn't dim his brights, I could still see the brake lights of the car in front of me.

Ironically, I didn't see any wildlife on the highway.  It was only when I returned to Cascade that I saw deer.  In town.  And on that 45 mph road to one of Cascade's outlying neighborhoods.

Here's a few pictures of the town deer in our yard and the neighbor's yard on Wednesday morning after a 3 inch snowfall when they were looking for something to eat.  The leaves in our strawberry patch seemed to be the thing.  These pictures were taken out our dining room window.

Playing in the Mud

Here are some pictures from last week out at the camp.  On the left is Devon, a licensed septic installer, who volunteered his labor and equipment to help us re-dig our water and electric lines and install 5 new septic tanks.

Devon was a pro with the backhoe. 

Here they are installing one of the cabin septic tanks.  We plan to add bathroom additions onto four cabins next spring. They will each have two toilets, sinks and showers.  No more walking to the shower house in the rain and snow!

Preparing to sink the large collection tank which will receive from the other four behind the cabins.

Steve pauses for a picture in one of the 6 foot deep trenches where they are laying pipe.  At 6 feet under it won't freeze in the winter.  Right now all pipes must be drained in late October.

A muddy mess.

At the back of the cabin you can see the cement foundation wall that was just poured for the bathroom addition.  This kind of work can only be done in the fall after the camp rental season is over.  In the spring the water table would be too high.

Ryan connecting a T-joint.

Marty (YWAM Idaho director), Devon and Steve take a break.

A few electrical lines got accidentally cut by the bulldozer.  There was no schematic available of where any of the lines were laid.

Debbi says, "What happened to the power in the kitchen?"

Devon, "How was I supposed to know there were wires here?"

Fortunately, Ryan is an electrician and knows how to fix it.

Surveying the mess between the dining hall and the chapel.

After the water pipes were laid, Devon back-filled the trenches to 2 feet deep. This week they are finishing laying the electrical wiring.  Our power capacity at the camp will be doubled.  The remodeled cabins will have baseboard heat instead of one outlet with a space heater plugged into it.

All of this has been very expensive, as you can imagine.  Please pray with us that God will provide the resources needed for us to enable our YWAM camp to operate year-round.  We want to be good stewards of what He has given us.

Heaven Rejoices

Post-Quake Outpouring: Since January, more than 100,000 Haitians have become Christians.
(Chrisitianity Today)
Remember to pray for the people of Haiti, who are experiencing a cholera outbreak and Hurricane Tomas, in addition to the continuing devastation of January's earthquake.

Luis Palau and his son, Andrew Palau, just completed 2 evangelistic Festivals in Chile.  Out of 145,000 people reached through live events, more than 13,000 made a documented decision for Christ.

At the Santiago Festival, they were joined by rescued miner Jose Henriquez, widely known as the "pastor" and spiritual leader among the miners. He shared his testimony and reported that during the 69-day ordeal 22 of the 33 miners prayed to surrender to Jesus Christ.  He commented privately, "I do hope they will follow through and walk with Christ for life."

The Palaus also had the opportunity to meet with Chilean president Sebastian Pinera. "They discussed several serious topics during their meeting, including the importance of public officials recognizing God in their statements and speeches. Palau pointed out the promise made by God in the Bible, “Those who honor me I will honor.”"

Luis and Andrew Palau with Jose Henriquez (center)

Quote of the Day

"...but they seem to be as rare as young-earth creationists on a Galapagos cruise."

Andy Crouch, describing the small number of scientists who try to engage both camps in the Science vs. Faith culture war.  From "Looking Over the Fence", Christianity Today, October 2010, p.63.

Different Not Less

One of the nice things about small town life for us is that we had to choose between paying for cable TV or having no TV.  We chose no TV.  Instead we chose a Netflix subscription where we can carefully choose what we watch. As for the news, I can get all I want from the computer.

Last night I watched an HBO film about the life of  Temple Grandin, the most widely known autistic individual in America.  She grew up in the 50's when not much was known about autism.  Her mother was told to put her in an institution, but today she holds a PhD and writes and speaks on autism and animal husbandry (her chosen career) around the world.  She was the first person with autism to share with a wider audience what it is really like to be autistic.

She says she thinks in pictures rather than words, sort of like the search engine at Google Images.  This enables her to remember visual details with amazing accuracy.  However, she was never able to get algebra in high school because there were no visual images.  It was too abstract.

 She likens the brain of an autistic person to a large office building where the communication networks between offices are not distributed evenly.  The CEO/manager on the top floor has only a slower dial-up internet connection and an old rotary phone. He is a little out of touch with the outside world. The human resources department (symbolizing social interaction) has nothing, no phones, no internet.  They are high and dry.  But the graphic design department has all the latest, highest speed communication devices and work is humming over there at a very productive speed.  They are getting their job done with excellence.  They just don't know what the rest of the world is up to.

Some people only see the deficiencies in the other departments when they look at the autistic person, but forget to value the contribution of the graphic design department (or whatever strength the person has).  She describes the autistic brain as a "specialist" brain and encourages us to value the unique contribution these people have to offer.  Don't you want your air traffic controller or your bridge engineer to be a detail person to the max? She says autistic people are Different but not Less.  She says if she could take a pill today that would take away her autism, she wouldn't do it.

Being the mother of an autistic spectrum individual (my son has Aspergers Syndrome), Temple's story impacted me greatly.  I am amazed at all she has accomplished and the obstacles she has overcome.  Not all autistic individuals are able to overcome the misunderstandings and negative relational experiences they encounter daily to the degree that she did. It is a good reminder to all of us to value each person for who they are, no matter how different from us.

The movie just won 7 Emmys August 29, 2010. If you're looking for a great inspirational story, check it out.

New Every Morning

I didn't name this blog New Every Morning because I'm going to write something new every morning.  It comes from Lamentations 3:21-23, my life verses.
      "Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
      Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
      They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."
I hope that I can share some of God's love, compassions and faithfulness in this space.