What to do...what to do?

June 28, 2012

This morning I found myself in an unusual situation...I was home all by myself! This doesn't happen very often, and at first, I wasn't really sure what I should do!

Well, today's item on our 30 day photography challenge was to take a picture of a bad habit...seriously? How are you suppose to photograph a bad habit? Well, I do have a bad habit that I guess I could photograph...clutter...

This is an area of my bedroom that has been sorely neglected and has needed to be de-cluttered for quite some time. It is one of those things that is on my mind to clean up, but just doesn't occur during the day since I don't spend a lot of time in my bedroom during the day. After spending about an hour cleaning things up, the area now looks like...

...this! Ahh, so much more organized! It is not at all perfect yet, still piles on the shelves that I need to go through, but looks so much more inviting! Looks like Kelsey will be gone again for a few hours one day next week, that will give me a chance to work on another clutter pile somewhere else in the house...of which I have just a few... :o)

Then I spent the next hour listening to a podcast for our Sunday School lesson. We are going through a book called Fundamentals of the Faith by John MacArthur. Each week we take time during the week to listen to a podcast for the lesson and complete the lesson in the book. Then on Sunday morning, we take time in the group to discuss the lesson. We are about half way through the book...

Pinterest! I will be one of the teachers for the upcoming VBS at our church, so I created a board for some space ideas to use. Here is one that I think will be great to send to our Compassion kids too...

Source: quinceandquire.typepad.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

Do you ever have time alone at your home? And what fun things have you found on Pinterest lately?

Can you survive on $1.25 a day?

June 26, 2012

Nearly 1.3 billion people live in extreme poverty everyday. Have you ever had the chance to experience what it feels like to walk in their shoes?

By playing Survive125, you have the chance to make some of the same decisions that people living in extreme poverty have to make everyday to try to survive. Do you live in the slums or the village? Do you pull your son out of school once every 3 days to get clean water that is a 3 hour round trip walk or drink dirty water? Do you pay thugs that are threatening you or report it to the police? Can you even imagine making these types of decisions as you try to work and provide for your family?

I took the challenge and only made it to day 21. Are you willing to take the challenge? If you take the challenge, be sure to let me know your results in the comments. Share this challenge with your friends!

There are many who believe that the poor will always be with us. I don't believe that is so. Through the work of Compassion, I believe we can help to make a difference in the lives of children living in extreme poverty. Take the time to watch this video and be challenged to believe that we can make a difference!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uZV90fsoCY]

Summer Monday at Home

June 18, 2012

“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.” - Jane Austen

Monday is usually a home day for us. Not really sure why, but it has just always seemed to work out that way. After a busy weekend, Monday just has always been a day to get the laundry done and stay close to home.

Matthew started his orchard job today, so we won't be seeing him at home most of the day for the next few weeks. He drives a tractor during the apricot harvest. They start early in the morning (about 5:30am!) and are usually done around 2pm. He is usually pretty hot and tired by the time he gets home.

So today, Kelsey and I stayed home and were able to do a few fun things together...

Making and spending more money than we will ever see

Homemade Snickerdoodles...yum!

It is Monday, so there was laundry to be done

No sense of baking all the cookie dough, so we flash froze some to be baked later

Letter from Lina arrived!

We started taking all the pictures off of the project boards from Matthew's graduation...

...and started adding them to the album for him to keep

This letter was an extra surprise today! There was a letter addressed to Kevin from Compassion. There was nothing on the front of the letter indicating that it might be a letter from his correspondent child, Murimi, from Kenya. Back in November, we put some items together for Murimi and sent them to Kenya with our friends who are over there this year working with Agape Children's Ministry. They dropped the package off at the Compassion country office to be delivered to Murimi.

Along with a nice long letter, we received these 3 photographs of Murimi! The first picture shows Murimi holding the gallon size ziploc bag of items we sent over. The next picture shows Murimi wearing the t-shirt and shorts we bought for him and he is holding the 2 Hot Wheels cars that were in the package. The last picture at the bottom shows Murimi holding the snowman picture the my husband made for Murimi as well as the paper snowflakes on his head! What a special treat this was!

Did anything special happen on your Monday?

Be a Blessing

June 12, 2012

One of the best things about being an advocate with Compassion International is the opportunity I have to help find sponsors for children living in extreme poverty.

Right now, I have 4 children who would love to be blessed by someone who will sponsor them, pray for them, and write to them regularly. Would you like to be that person for one of these children?

Kornelius is 9 years old and lives in Indonesia. He lives with his mother and helps her by washing clothes. He enjoys playing with cars and telling stories.

Dede is from Ghana, and she lives at home with her parents, as well as one sibling. Her household chores are running errands and cleaning. Dede likes to play house, run, and play group games.

Yancy lives with her mother and one sibling in El Salvador. For fun, Yancy enjoys art, playing with dolls, and running. She helps at home with gardening, making beds, and running errands

Nithin lives in India with his parents and one sibling. He helps at home by carrying water, washing clothes, and making beds. His favorite activities are ping pong, volleyball, and singing. Nithin has also been waiting 7 months for a sponsor.

If you would like to sponsor one of these children, please reply to this post or send me an e-mail at kymk99 (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Compassion Letter Writing Fingerpaint Project

June 9, 2012

Last night we held our monthly Compassion Sponsor Letter Writing Night. We were hoping to work on this project for each one of our kids:

Source: attackofthetwins.blogspot.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

However, we soon found out that painter's tape doesn't come off of fingerpaint paper very well:

The original project was done on canvas, and we know we can't send canvas to our Compassion kids so we used fingerpaint paper instead. The paper started to rip in some places, so we decided to still use the fingerpainting, but in a couple of different ways.