November Compassion Share & Tell

November 15, 2013

Hello and welcome to my monthly Compassion Share & Tell link up! This link up gives us an opportunity to share with other Compassion sponsors what we are sending to our sponsored kids each month.

With Thanksgiving just a couple of weeks away, I was able to find the "I am thankful for..." printable on Compassion's Second Friday Letter Writing Club board on Pinterest. Then on one of my journeys through Hobby Lobby, I found these great cards! Did you know that DaySpring has a line of cards called Colors of Compassion? A portion of the sales from this line of cards goes toward Compassion's Child Survival Program! Win, win in my book!

Now, normally I would share with you what I have written to each of my kids. But this month, I want to share with you what my daughter wrote to her sponsored child, Katherinne, who lives in El Salvador (she wrote her letters online this month):

Hello Katherinne, How are you? I hope you are doing well there! Me and my family are doing well here where we are. We are getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a holiday we celebrate because that's when people from England came over and came to the United States. There is normally a big dinner and we celebrate it with family and sometimes friends! It is lots of fun because we get to visit with family and friends and we all have a good time. Christmas is also coming up! Are you excited? You will have to tell me all about your Christmas when it comes. I love Christmas because it's such a happy time of the year. We sometimes have family come over so we can celebrate it! It is a very special time of year because Jesus was born! He came to this earth in human form so that he could live among us and also so he could grow up here and then die on the cross for our sins! Then he rose from the dead three days after he died! What an amazing thing! It is so fun and happy. We decorate a tree with different things like little glass balls and ribbon and lights. It always looks so pretty, glowing with all the different color lights! It is always so beautiful! I will be praying for you and your family and I love you but Jesus will always love you so so so much more then I ever could. :) I love you! Kelsey

Katherinne is just a few months older than my daughter Kelsey. We have already talked about planning a trip together in about three years for the two of us to visit Katherinne. Lord willing, I sure do hope will we have that opportunity together!

Time for you to join this link up!

Here are the rules:

Link up by posting your blog post URL- not just the blog URL
Visit other blogs and leave comment love.
I reserve the right to remove any links that don’t fit the link up theme or that I find inappropriate

Blog hop will remain open until Friday, November 29, 2013, so be sure to come back and share your blog post with us at the Linky Tools below:

My Capture Your 365 - Days 309 - 314

November 13, 2013

Through the month of November, the Capture Your 365 photo challenge is focusing on the subject of gratitude. Here are a few things from the past week that I am grateful for:

Day 309 - Birthdays: Even though we don't have any November birthdays in our famiy, we can still enjoy candles on a dark autumn night.

Day 310 - The Little Things: Last week was Compassion's One Meal One Day. This is a day set aside for people to skip a meal, then donate money to Compassion to help a child living in extreme poverty. I skipped lunch on this day, spent time in prayer for children around the world, and drank a lot of water, thankful that I at least had clean water to drink.

Day 311 - Quiet Moments: With only one child at home during the day (and she likes to sleep in!), I am able to spend my quiet moments in the morning soaking in Truth to start my day.

Day 312 - R&R: I am so thankful that my children are able to take care of the dishes after dinner at night!

iPhone self portrait at Tuolumne Meadows

Day 313 - Challenges: I usually don't put up my iPhone photos for this challenge, but I challenged myself to take a self portrait while we were up in Yosemite over the weekend. Instead of reversing the camera on the phone to get the photo, I actually turned the phone around and manuevered my finger to just the right spot to capture this one. Ta da!

Day 314 - Selfless Acts: One other ministry we love to support this time of year is Operation Christmas Child. For years now, we have filled shoe boxes with necessities and trinkets to share God's love with children around the world. It is not too late to fill your own shoe box! National Collection Week this year is November 18th through the 25th.

Have you printed out the November Capture Your 365 photo list yet?

Photo Treasure Hunt - Autumn

November 12, 2013

Autumn, we are about half way through this season and it is starting to feel like it here in Central California. There has been a bit of a chill in the air in the mornings, the fallen leaves were crunching under my feet on my walk this morning, and I have started making soup for dinner at least once a week.

Over the course of the last week, here are some autumn treasures I was able to capture:

Now it is your turn to join me and my friend Jill on our Photo Treasure Hunt!

Link up by posting your blog post URL- not just blog URL
Link back to one of us (grab button if desired, I hope to have the button in my side bar soon!)
Visit other blogs and leave comment love.
Be sure to take note of next theme and start collecting more photos. Jill always has a fun transition photo, so be sure to visit her blog to see what the theme is for next week!
We reserve the right to remove any links that don’t fit the link up theme or that we find inappropriate

Next week's theme is....Brown!! What brown things will you find this next week?

Be sure to link up below with your autumn photos!