Saturday, July 30, 2011

The Bread and Wine

The Bread and the Wine.

My daily defined= 

"a low"

"a funk" 

"duty" 

"heartless obedience" 

"silent"

Until I got to this song during a workout on Wednesday....

God as we walk this world,
We want to be a sign
Our prayers flow into love,
Giving your life

Pre-Chorus:
Broken but singing
Our hearts keep shining

Chorus:
Let my life shine, come and let my heart shine
We’re going to walk the world and lift the bread and wine
Like the stars shine, come and let our hearts shine
In a dark world, 
we lift the bread and wine

Verse 2:
And we were born for this
Born for this day and time
Our prayers flow into love
Giving our lives



Out of silence he spoke. 

The word was there before me since July 15

Romans 14:20
Do not destroy the work of the Lord for the sake of FOOD!

I rehearsed it, I typed it, I quoted it, I told it

but I didn't live it. 

Powerless. Empty duty.

Can one know the word and it not penetrate the heart? 

Can one stay in silence? 

Just as the sun breaks forth from the horizon, the word came alive in my life.

The bread and wine.

He is the bread and wine. 

What is better than bread and wine? 

Satisfying and Sweet smelling.

Each glass distinct and full of flavor. 

The bread and wine. 

His body, His blood.

The long anticipated sacrifice. 

All of a sudden HE was enough, my bread and wine- 

 the grace and redemption story had me in tears as I tried to continue pull ups and rows.

When nothing seemed to fit, nothing satisfied, no words healed or stirred 

I went back to that song. 

Broken but singing. 

How do I find rest in a world full throttle? 

You exchange, you come to the table tired and worn...

 lift the bread and wine

And walk away renewed.

HE is all I need.

Sweet communion. 




You will wear out, you will experience lows, you will not want to walk the world for Jesus, you will want to quit, you will believe and act on lies- 

Do not quit reading, studying, memorizing, going to church, or talking about HIM with others.






Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Not Just a Tote bag...

Many weeks ago Mr. Incredible went on a trip to a Catalyst conference, he brought back crazy & cool stuff.

Crazy-




Cool-





Cooler-





























Coolest-





found here, sari bari is another organization that creates jobs for women who were once selling their bodies to make money to eat. That is the world we live in. We can not ignore that fact.

The name "Sari Bari" comes from two symbols. A sari is the traditional clothing worn by women in India. In India, a sari represents the essence of womanhood. The word bari mean "house or home" in the Bengali language.  


I challenge you- go and buy a bag, retail mission work is my favorite! Bags with purpose- just think what you could do.... 


trying to make a difference one post at a time, 
the totegirl







Monday, July 25, 2011

Art Camp

While Cody and I were at falls creek, Cady, the artist,  went to Art Explosion in Duncan.

She enjoyed it although she was reluctant to go at first.

She did kite making....



And mono printing....


and tye dye....





and pottery...




The pottery teacher was a believer AND he was from Washington state ( 9 days, folks 9 days!!)

The saturday after art camp Cady was inspired to get her pottery wheel out and guess who joined in the fun?


Mr. Incredible is a potter too!




Sunday, July 24, 2011

Summer Job week 9


I have been so impressed with Sarah. These last few weeks she's really shown a new level of comfort with teaching and leading out. She's a jewel. Whoever marries her will be blessed Eph. 3:20 style.

This week was dance camp.

Dance Camp at Velma BAPTIST church. Ha!

Psalm 149:3 was our theme- Let them praise HIS name in the dance.

Here's a few of the photos....

beginners - intro to ballet
























































The tall ones are all going in to Kindergarten, the shortys are all 3 and will wait another year for school.
We used typical preschool technics with them supporting our focus of God as creator of us , spiritually and physically and author of the dance. You use phrases like, "Thank you God for eyes so we can see Reagan dance" "Thank you for legs and feet to move and ears to hear the music"

The intermediate group....





This group had a devotion time each day.

day 1- Miriam in Exodus
day 2- King David and evil eyed Michal 2 samuel 6
day 3- Ecc. 3 passage - a time to mourn and a time to dance
day 4- Herodias's daughter dances for the wrong reason- we learned the word manipulate too, lol




























And the advanced group- Sarah had fun with them, they were really good.





day 3 really hit home with Ecc. 3:4 a time to mourn....one of the girls' dad died Wed. night. She was unable to finish the week.  Life lessons, man! tough


























Super sweet girls.

I didn't realize how much fun dance camp would be. We've never really done an all week all girl thing.

The end of the week program went well and was well attended....





















































Sarah danced for us, brought me to tears. I rarely perform as a music teacher- that should not be. I need to use my gifts more. Inspiring.

On admin notes...

We had the girls pay for t-shirt/dvd/hair bows, a reasonable $10
There was a deadline for sign up- highly recommend that, but stick to it, I tend to say one thing yet do another, letting others join us
We had them sign waviers-
We had around 37 girls, could have more had we advertised more (facebook event pages have been used a lot this summer with high success but there are a lot of people that aren't on facebook)

I could write a book about doing t-shirts.

I found vistaprint.com  a few weeks ago. I recommend it. They have good sales from time to time on lots of advertising stuff. I found $6 t-shirts a few weeks ago and a great logo that we went with. For me with t-shirts the logo is hard to come up with. I  like easy and quick designs.

Problem #1- vistaprint didn't do kid sizes.
We went to a local and new print shop problem #2 they would be out of town 10 days before camp
Problem #3 didn't do so good with the falls creek youth shirts
So I tried to make the design on my mac- success! thanks to Cody
Problem #4 where to find the t-shirts quickly in a small town, Coaches Corner in Duncan comes to the rescue, $5 a shirt, however Walmart did have some for 3$ but not near enough
Problem #6 iron on transfers - only 5 pages per pack, walmart only had 3 packs! and I was running out of time, so I used some dark color transfers which are different and more expensive but worked.

So I ironed and printed for hours on Tues. & Wed. And in the end they still cost $8 a piece.

Moral of the story- find a print shop with a good designer you trust & do it all early.


Saturday, July 23, 2011

Race #3

Well it's over and I guess yesterday's speed blogging did the trick, :)- I beat my old time!

28:40 (I think, they weren't computerized)

The anticipation of running with so many people I knew was crazy. I loved it! Neighbors, teachers, retired folks, watermelon farmers, kids, moms, firemen, doctors, and the road trip runners. I noticed some of the same people at the June race in Duncan. There are friends to be made here, I can feel it. Stories yet to be heard.



So guess who came to the run? (Well sorda, he came and saw us get ready but left before we even started) My dad. I run primarily because he did. I remember seeing him run as a kid & waiting at the track for him to finish. I regrettably don't have a picture of us.

So we all ran/jogged/walked it. Even Charis. Lucky duck got to stroll. She'll be with us soon!


Cody prayed before the race, cool huh!


We are in there somewhere

I have no picture of Cady. And I am so sad, she did the 1 m and I was so excited for her, of course I had to buy her new shoes for her to do it, lol.

26 min. later here we come....


This is Shawn and Coach Combest battling it out....


Tiffany, Kerri's oldest daughter- she and her husband passed me right before the second mile.

They are young.


This gal beat me in the Duncan race and showed up to beat me again here.


Here I come the 11th girl to come in. ( I was 10th in Duncan) I had the same # 33 that I had in Duncan. ironic huh?


Kerri, her best time this week....


So proud of my son! He's only done this 2 times, Thur. night was the first, but it's in his blood now and he'll run this fall in cross country I am sure.

His daddy tried to beat him but he'd pull away every time he'd get close.


What a man! Pushing the stroller so I could run. They were bored last race so they decided to join me.


Someone special took this photo of me. I really wanted a medal, they were cool looking. 2nd again. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Better than 3rd.

That someone even raced....


So proud of Shelby

Thanks to Temple Grundy for taking the pictures for us!!!

A great day to be a VA comet!

Here we are at home with our medals and Silas is sporting the t-shirt. We got the kids a first race medal. They will have to earn the next one though.



And my favorite runner of the day....


We are going to run away together....in 11 days.

Do not try and stop us.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Preparing for the Velma Road Race!


Think speed.

No kids.

Quiet house.

Pictures.

Words.

Speed blogging.

We have been talking about the velma 5k road race tomorrow all summer around my house and can hardly believe it's here. 

I think Kerri and I have inspire some people around here. People are running everywhere. 

Including these 2


In fact my whole family will join me tomorrow in the race. Silas & Cody will be running/walking the 5K, Cady and Kerri's daughter will jog/walk the 1 mile fun run. Charis rides in luxury in a jogging stroller!

So Cady and Shelby went to practice a night this week and Cady, in true daughter-of-the-totegirl fashion takes a bag with her. 

In prep I wanted to explore what a 9 year old might take on her jog/walk....


So while she's swimming this afternoon I peeked. Ok I was creeping, it's what God has called us mom's to do, ok!


I remember her asking for a towel for the sweat, she doesn't like to sweat. 




























She has the 10$ OK Runner Sweat band I got her, her Ds, for waiting, and her falls creek band....my kids love falls creek. I didn't grow up in Oklahoma so that is foreign to me but I am glad they like it. It's a pretty awesome plance. She also had an ipod with no headphones, interesting. (not pictured) 

 Ok I am ending at 14 min. 

A new blogging record! And I even included 4 pics, and a link

If I could only run 3.2 miles that fast.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Race #2 - Falls Creek

Falls creek 5K = Hills

We started at 7:30

There were 7 hills, some long, some really steep. Which means there were down hills, too, some long, lots of little rocks (my goal was to not fall) and some requiring slow shuffles.

First loop and my shoe came untied=  a stop

I didn't have my running buddy Kerri= lonely

ipod not charged= no amp, no drive

I did get to run with these kids


Ty Hobbs,  8th grade VA comet, distance runner


Emily Combest, 8th grade coach's daughter and distance runner, ran in under 26 min.

we are standing here with the camp pastor, Ed Newton, who was all smiles and high fives



Yes, he was done, I was starting on the last loop.

Ty beat him though....


You can see him in black right there behind Ty's right shoulder.


And here's Coach Loveall (VA track coach and falls creek cook)

Who timed me at 31:40

Not too bad for eating too much all week, having no sleep all week and 7 hills on the course. It's a beatable time for next week for sure!

So here's what I thought about on the long course.

I hate running alone. Always makes me think of running the "journey of life" alone. And makes me think of how much we need each other. Maybe some like to run alone but I don't.

There are people cheering but they don't even know my name. I thought about how important it is for the kids that come back from camp so excited about serving Jesus and some with new life in Christ- how important it is that they have people cheering them on weekly. And throughout their life. Yet another reason you should be plugged into a local church. The older adults should be our cheer leaders.

High fiving, calling our names, pointing to the right direction, the correct path to follow. If I didn't follow the course on this 5k I'd end up running a lot more than I had to. And WHO wants that? I might have even gotten lost and given up all together.

But you know what kept me going? Those who'd gone before me, those waiting at the finish line. I knew they were waiting, they knew the joy of finishing so I kept running, even when a teenager came up and told me I was breathing wrong. I just smiled and said ok, we'll see. I ended up passing him later.


























Just run.






Summer Job - week 8

This week found me, Sarah (intern), Cody and Blake all at Falls Creek for the youth. 

Why all of us? Because we are a team. 

T- together 
E- everyone 
A-accomplishs 
M- more

The theme was love. Talk is cheap, love not in words but in action! 

Ed Newton brought the word from I John in night services. He's an adoption advocate, gospel teaching guy- we loved him!


and check it out he's a runner! 

Brad Clay brought the nightly devotion and they too were about holiness and confession and loving in action not just words. 



























I cooked with the lovely Jana Loveall



and her husband....



All my clothes smell like bacon. 

It comes with the job.

I really enjoyed the kids. 


Guess what Shelby was doing....







Rolling with the bags and Bibles.

Sticking by my side lego style. 


Children wise Sarah did Wet and Wild with team leaders on her own....we'll have to check in on how the story of the great fish catch and slip and slide went. She was an awesome addition to our group at camp. We sat down last Sunday and went over some evaluation questions- she continues to grow learn and be so teachable, so glad we had the summer to really get to know her heart and abilities. She is quite flexible with serving in a lot of different rolls. I see her marrying and serving along side a minister in a lot of different areas. Blessed will that man be who finds and fights for her! 

Next week is dance camp and the registration has closed, we are doing t-shirts again which prove to be crazy. word out - find a good t-shirt person early in ministry, it will make life easier. But I do think the dance camp will be good. We have 3 classes and over 30 signed up. Different but a good program. We'll disclose all the details next week.