Life: an adventure, a journey with Jesus!
Bandaids, beans, books and birthday blessings!


So, how’s your day been? Bet you didn’t deal with bandaids, beans, books and birthday blessings! It’s all part of life here and we do whatever it takes. Maybe I should explain a little further.

Today was one of those days where we had no appointments, meetings, expected no visitors and really nothing pressing to do. Could easily have been a television day had we been in the states. But there always seems to be something to do here and we got right to it!

Don spent his day reviewing the Lumps of Clay manuals (books!) Finding several areas that he wanted to rework, some typos, and a few more verses he wanted to include took up a great deal of his time. Mission accomplished – he finished proof reading the Teacher’s Manual.

What about the bandaids? Over the past two years, donations have been received by Jan Daigle for the medical mission clinics of the team ministries. Bandaids have been received in abundance! In fact there were hundreds of loose bandaids – not in boxes, but all in a huge zip lock bag. I sorted, and bagged them into individual sandwich baggies. Twenty-four assorted sizes per bag. These are now ready for free distribution to Mommas with children at the next medical clinic. All total, we now have 100 such gift bags to be shared with the Peruvians. (Remember, I said 24 each and 100 bags, right? That means we had over 2400 bandaids to bag!) And, guess what, we still have several boxes remaining in the clinic supplies.

And the beans? It is not common to find canned or frozen vegetables here in the supermarket. So, I have learned to cook beans on the stove top for a few hours at a time with whatever ingredients available. Fresh green beans, dried navy beans, and even kidney beans, but lentils have become a favorite soup of ours. Just wish I had tried it years ago. As they cook, the house fills up with a wonderful aroma, and we benefit from the warmth of the kitchen on these cool days.

What about the books? There was a rather large donation of preschool and elementary school books this past summer. Yes, they are in English – but we know they will be well used one day. Last night Heather, a fellow missionary, called and said the Sunday School class she was teaching this coming week was on the 5th day of creation and the subject of birds and fish. The difficult part for the children here is that they only see pigeons dotting the sky and fish in the outdoor market. She asked if I could go through the books and find large colorful pictures of various birds and fish in their natural habitat. So, for over an hour, I perused Scholastic books and had some flashbacks to the reading I had done with our grandkids in Georgia. Enjoyed this quiet time, and found a few goodies for Heather to use this Sunday.

Birthday blessings in September when my birthday is in March? Yes! That’s right! The CrossWave Team from North Carolina was having their directors meeting tonight and called and sang happy birthday to me! Just think about it. If you were to call someone and sing happy birthday to them, and it’s not their birthday, it’s really sort of silly, but it’s fun and everyone enjoys the good laugh, and most of all, they know you were thinking of them. So, when I heard them begin singing, we all fully enjoyed the few minutes together on the phone, and I was blessed to know they thought of me tonight. We took the opportunity to share a prayer request with them and it was just a wonderful 5 minute interlude at the end of a ‘regular’ day.

Let me go back to the Lumps of Clay workbooks that Don has authored and share with you why all these tasks are important. One section of the workbook is a study on “why did God create me?” and the reasons include: He created me to inhabit the earth, to glorify God, for a life of good deeds, for His love and for His pleasure. This life of good deeds comes after salvation of course. And a verse Don shared with me this evening is found in Titus 2:14 “He gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” Those last 6 words are important when we are doing the daily, mundane things. Are we eager to do what is good?