Capture Your 365

We are now entering my favorite time of the year (summer, yay!) and I have a few photos from the Capture Your 365 Challenge to share with you this week!

signs of summer

ISO 100, 86mm, f/4.2, 3 sec

Day 152 – Signs of Summer: Our town has a festival at the beginning of June each year and Saturday night always has a fireworks display. We love sitting out in front of our home and watching the fireworks over our neighbor’s houses. I set up my tripod and just continued taking a lot of pictures during the display. It was a great way to end an almost-summer day!

butterfly

ISO 400, 190mm, f/5.6, 1/50 sec

Day 154 – Dandelions: No dandelions in my backyard and not the sharpest picture I have ever taken, but I was able to capture a butterfly! Boy, that was hard work!

negative space

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.5, 1/15 sec

Day 155 – Negative Space: My husband surprised me with a bouquet of ‘just because’ flowers. These were the perfect subject for today’s photo prompt!

documented

ISO 400, 50mm, f/3.2, 1/60 sec

Day 156 – Documented: When it was decided that I would be joining the Compassion trip to Mexico in January 2014, I decided to start a ledger to keep track of my ‘earnings’. To remind myself that God is in control, I wrote out “The Lord will provide” from Genesis 22:14. There is no reason for me to worry about the funds for this trip because God will make it possible if it is His will for me to go. He has been providing abundantly, it has been exciting to see Him work in all of this!

What have you captured this week with your camera?

Compassion Keep In Touch Box

Since our pastor has allowed us to keep a Compassion table in the lobby of our church, I have been wanting to put together a box of items for our many Compassion sponsors. As a Compassion Advocate, I want to do what I can to encourage sponsors to be writing to their kids on a regular basis. My prayer is that this box will make it easier for our sponsors to take the time to write to their sponsored kids.

Here is a list of items I have included in this box:

• Monthly Compassion prayer calendar
• Blank birthday cards
• Blank note cards
• Tips for mailing small gifts print out from the Compassion web site
• Copies of the California coloring page from the Crayola web site
• Pages from activity pages I have found at the Dollar Spot at Target
• Variety of stickers
• Copies of a Bible verse printable I found on Pinterest
• Copies of old Explorer magazines

The box was very well received this morning with many people finding new things to send to their kids. My goal is to update the box at least once a month with the new monthly Compassion prayer calendar and any new printables I find on Pinterest.

What do you do to encourage Compassion sponsors at your church?

What will you be reading this summer?

ISO 400, 50mm, f/3.2, 1/60 sec

My absolutely most favorite place to receive mail from is Compassion, which usually contain letters form our sponsored kids. My second most favorite place to receive mail/packages from is Amazon, which usually means that new books have arrived!

Now that school is wrapping up here for the summer, I was in ‘need’ of some new books to read over the next couple of months. (I put the word ‘need’ in quotation marks because I never really ‘need’ more books, but I am such a book-nerd that I always love having new books to read!) Here is what I just received:

Cue Cards for Life by Christina Steinorth: this one was recommended lately on a blog that I follow. The book’s subtitle is ‘Thoughtful Tips for Better Relationships’. I don’t know about you, but this is something I know I need to work on in all areas of my life. Many times, I become so focused about ‘all that needs to be accomplished in a day’ that I don’t really take time to think about others in my life. Hopefully I can ‘learn’ a few simple things I can do each day to be more considerate each day.

Bread & Wine by Shauna Niequist: I have seen this one floating around the social media world recently and what really drew me to want to order this book is there are some recipes included! I like the idea of hospitality, sharing a good, simple meal with family and friends. Maybe I will have to give a couple of the recipes a try this summer during a summer BBQ or two!

Sparkly Green Earrings by Melanie Shankle: This is another one that I know many bloggers have been reading. So far, I have read 9 chapters since yesterday and have really been enjoying this one! I have actually laughed out loud by some of the stories that have been shared. I am looking forward to finishing this one up pretty quickly!

The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns: Another Compassion Advocate recommended this one to me. In the introduction, the first sentence is ‘What does God expect of us?’ Since I don’t know a lot about World Vision, this book may give me a little more insight into their role in helping to eliminate extreme poverty.

Biblia para Ninos Historias de Jesus by Sally Lloyd-Jones: This one is not for me, but since I was ordering books, I wanted to make sure I remembered to order it! I will be taking this book to Eduardo on my Compassion trip to Mexico in January! I know I will be picking up other things for him, but I am really excited that I will be able to give him this sweet book that will remind him of how much Jesus loves him.

So, what will you be reading this summer?

Capture Your 365

Kind of a slow week for me on the photo prompts, but I will be sharing a couple of extra photos with you this week!

chocolate chip cookies

ISO 100, 50mm, f/4.0, 1/6 sec

Day 146 – In The Kitchen: Our pastor’s son recently got married down in Southern California and they had a reception with our church family after their honeymoon. For the reception, the groom requested homemade chocolate chip cookies. So I baked a couple of batches of my favorite recipe from America’s Test Kitchen (it is worth getting the trial membership for this recipe!)

smiles

ISO 400, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/80 sec

Day 149 – Smiles: Trying to get these two to cooperate for this picture was hilarious! They kept giggling and squirming. Not the sharpest image (shutter speed was too slow for the focal length), but I love how it captures the sweet relationship my children have for each other.

flowers

ISO 400, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/25 sec

Day 150 – Butterflies: There is no butterfly in this picture, but these flowers do attract hummingbirds quite often. Maybe I will be able to capture a butterfly or hummingbird picture one of these days.

So at the beginning of this post, I mentioned that I would have a couple of extra photos for you this week. Here is the first one:

stoppe reception

ISO 400, 50mm, f/5.0, 1/50 sec

Remember the wedding reception I was baking the chocolate chip cookies for? This is the bride and groom. While I have never photographed a wedding (and I am not sure if I will want to!), I did have fun taking pictures at this reception.

San Francisco

ISO 100, 120mm, f/7.1, 10 sec

Remember this photo that I posted a few weeks ago from our photography field trip to San Francisco? I entered it into the Arts & Crafts contest at our local town festival last weekend. I ended up winning a first place ribbon and Best of Show! So exciting!

Ready to join in the fun? Be sure to visit Capture Your 365 to print out this month’s photo prompt list. Be sure to let me know if you are participating so I can visit your blog.

Let’s Take a Journey to Nicaragua!

Have you heard the news?? The Compassion Bloggers are heading to Nicaragua this month and they have invited all of us to join along! Well, not really travel with them to Nicaragua, but they would love for us to be praying for them as they prepare for their trip, and to follow along with their blog posts as they write about their experiences on this journey.

When you go to this Compassion Bloggers link, you can find links to the bloggers who will be travelling on this trip. I hope to take time this week to visit each one of their blogs, get to know them a little bit, and let them know that I will be praying for them. Will you consider doing the same?

I know I have really enjoyed the blog posts from previous trips (you can read the previous trip blog posts here). This time, I will be reading with new interest as I prepare for my own Compassion trip to Mexico in January!