HB2Y Olive

Olive Oyl was the female character in the popular 1930's cartoon strips of "Popeye: The Sailor." Popeye, the main character and hero of the show would compete with Brutus, the likable villain for the affection and attention of Olive. Both characters would justify their often wrong and inappropriate actions as doing so "for the love of Olive." So when you hear someone say, "For the love of Olive" you know they are acting with their loved one in mind.

Today is my Olive's birthday, this is my letter to her.

Dear, you came into my life when I wasn't looking for anyone. I was closed off to others and cynical in all areas involving love and true giving of ones self. Lot's of people talk about hurts they have gone through and emotional traumas. It's good they can talk about it with people. I never have been able to... I was very content in staying closed and hard so that I couldn't be hurt again. I didn't want to be open to feeling again, I didn't want to be open to passion, knowing that to be open meant the possibility of hurt.

But then you came into my life and we decided to take the chance of not holding anything back, of not have all the fronts and walls to protect ourselves, to love with "no limits." At first the feelings I felt and felt from you I brushed off as excitement of getting to know someone new. Then as time went on and I felt them deep in my soul and they began to take root I started to accept them for what they were. They began to revitalize me and heal the broken parts of my heart. They helped me to breath. I began to feel alive and began to believe...

Time has past and our situations have changed and we don't spend as much time together as we once did. But I will live forever and I can wait as long as it takes for us to continue getting to know each other together in the Lord's perfect time. I know you go through a lot and I pray for you often...that the Lord be by your side always holding you as you grow so lovely and beautifully into the person He is causing you to be.

Your strength and encouragement coupled with your love has helped me reach out to others and has given me back hope that there are people out there who need my love, just as I need theirs.

Thank you Olive for being yielded to the Lord and open to what He did in our lives...which has helped me to begin to heal. I will always love you!

I don't have a way to get you a birthday gift so here is a rose for you...it's wrapped with all the love in my heart that the Lord has given me for you!

CTP's with the Kids.

I have been involving the kids into the weekly CTP's that I do of our food distribution. I think is so important that children learn early the joy of giving. We give away twice a week, one day is fruits and veggies and the other is bread and bakery goods. Adrian has been a real help to me in the pickups and has made lots of friends at the markets.

Jade is such a little giver, she loves to give. It touches my heart to see how concerned she is to be on the team to give the food away. The other day while in the neighbourhood where we drop the food off she saw a little girl with messy hair and she asked if she could give the girl her hair elastic since she has lots of them. What could I say but "Sure Sweetie!?"

Here are some photos from our food run this morning.

Jade and Adrian all ready to go!

Adrian and I unloading. (Photo by Jade)

Jade carrying a cake.

"Our Life Foundation Blog"

Nyx Martinez is always an inspiration to me of how much you can accomplish when your in the Lord's highest will. She is involved (like many Family homes) in many different projects and recently started a new blog to showcase the work of her and her family along with the many volunteers they rally and organize. So check out this link for Our Life Foundation Blog.

HB2Y Naty

Naty you are an amazing person and the love you have for your little ones is always nice to see. Though I have never lived with you I feel that we had been friends for a very long time. You and Chris have always been some of the tops on my list, been through alot at are still going. Good for you. So glad your in a nice new place. Happy Birthday dear friend. (Sorry the post is a few days late I wished you HB2Y on Skype on the day but haven't had much time to post lately)

Dress Up Night

Thursday Thought – Flip Flops

I go everywhere in flip flops. My favirote pair broke today. I have nearly worn through in the past 3 years of wearing them all the time. so now the part between the toes broke. I was tempted to be sad about it until the Lord reminded me I still have 3 other pairs. So TTL for His supply!

Dean Update

Thanks so much for your prayers. Hurricane Dean MISSED us. That’s right…it made landfall about 150miles north of is as a Cat 2 hurricane. Once making landfall it quickly lost strength and was downgraded to a tropical storm in about 2 hours.

We spent the afternoon of Tuesday preparing for the storm by cutting down all our coconuts and trimming trees in our yard. We removed anything from the yards and outside the house that was not actually bolted down. We parked all the cars safely out of the brunt of the wind and settled in for anything.

By about 9:00 pm we were getting the first bands of winds only about 20 kph. So I headed to the beach with the teens and some of the SGA’s and we had a great time in the rougher then normal seas. It was great exercise.

So going to bed that evening we prayed knowing the Lord had told us to stay and not evacuate and trusting him to keep us through it all. During the night Dean headed on a more northerly path projected and so missed us. We believe this was in direct answer to all your prayers for us. Thanks so much.

Although the storm didn’t affect us any more then rain and some wind, we would like to ask for your prayers for the families in the areas of the Yucatan and Central Mexico where the storm did do considerable damage with people left homeless and with out power.

One of our friends at the market who donates bananas weekly told us this morning that his grandfathers banana plantation is in the city where Dean made landfall the second time and all the banana trees are now gone. TTL no one was hurt and the only thing that was lost was crops.

Thanks again for your prayers!

Hurricane Dean

Hurricane Dean, is on it's way to Mexico as a Category 5 Hurricane with sustained winds at 165 mph and is the size of Nebraska. Please pray for protection of Family homes along the Yucatan coast. As well as the storm weakening after hitting land so that by the time it gets to us it's only a storm and not the level 3 hurricane they are predicting it to be. I will keep you updated as I can. Thanks for your prayers.

HB2Y Joni

Happy Birthday Joni, You are one of the coolest people I know. Your sample and dedication have always been an inspiration to me and sometimes convicting. I love you mucho and hope that this new year will be filled with friendship, love and the lords abundent supply and blessings. Wishing you the best.

Thursday Thought – Tired

I am too tired to think...

Less Tooth

I have been posting a lot about Jade lately so thought I should post one for Adrian. He lost his 8th tooth today. This was a cool thing for me since it's the first one he has lost while with me.

I was going to title the post "Toothless" but when I hear that word I think of someone with no teeth...so I settled for "Less Tooth" since he is only one tooth less. So all you people out there (you know who you are) that really want to correct my grammar please feel free to.

J.D.I.

Have you ever made one of those decisions that you knew you had to, didn’t want to, procrastinated about and then just made it?

We arrive at decisions in a multitude of ways. Sometimes people make them for us or force us into them. We make decisions based on circumstances or practicality. We make them based on feelings or moods. We make them out of necessity. Those are usually the easier kind for me.

The ones I have trouble with are the decisions that need to be made but none of the above mentioned factors are at play…it’s just you and the Lord. A leading He’s placed on your heart, a burden or a desire, a want or a need, but there is no time factor involved…no pressure. Seems like that would be a dream decision to make, not so for me.

Then when you finally make it you can close your eyes and you get a complete trust. His assurance washes over your soul and fills your inner being and you find peace.
Today was that kind of day. I hope your day was good too…so close your eyes and trust.

Beach at Night

HB2Y Nash

Happy Birthday NASH!!

Aha, you thought I would forget…

Well I am praying for you and hoping that everything is going extra well for you and your family. It was great seeing you a couple months ago. I will have to visit again. I hope you don’t mind this photo grabbed it from the MO site and here’s a flower for you that you can’t kill…hmmmm

Love you and Jason lots and appreciate your friendship. Keeping you guys in my prayers.

Thursday Thought – Victory!

(Jesus:) Battles are usually hard, and sometimes it looks like you're losing. Sometimes even when you're doing all you can‚ you feel like you've lost. But if you're doing your part and it doesn't seem that things are going very well, that just means that it's not over yet—that there's still a victory coming.

I use battles—especially ones that are long or difficult—to humble you, to make you more dependent on Me, and sometimes you do feel pretty defeated. But if you are using the spiritual weapons at your disposal, if you're listening to My instructions and doing what I tell you to do, then you're always destined to win in the end, even if it takes a lot of faith to believe that when you're going through it.

ML 3658:79,80

Coolness

Tonight the Lord provided us with a new fridge. Pictured are Mel, Andrew and Miguel (the donor) and “The Precious!”

Sleeping.

Today we had Home Council during QT and Jade was with the older boys playing in their room. One of the kids came to get me near the end of HC and told me Jade had gone to sleep at the top of the stairs waiting for me. This is how I found her. Poor thing, she had a short nap as I promptly moved and bathed her.

Broken Links

I went through my blog roll and edited out the broken links and relinked to sites that have changed. So if you tried to get there and couldn't you can now. If you find any errors please leave a comment.

HB2Y Ruth

Happy Birthday RUTH!

Ruth is a cool person!! I don’t know her personally but she had me linked to her blog within a few days of me opening mine. I still don’t know how she found me so fast, but she did.

Since then we have kept in touch via our blogs. When I was first learning about what it meant to have a blog and how to manage one she was also a great source of counsel and advice as well as a wealth of information as to editing the code and templates.

So if you enjoy my blog and its style (or lack thereof) then you can thank Ruth as I got most of what I know about it from her.

Thanks Ruth! I hope you have a great new year!

Thursday Thought – Failure?

If you are determined to fail and you succeed then what did you actually do?

Hair Cutting

Jade was complaining the other day about her bangs bothering her and getting in her eyes. Well today she found a pair of scissors and decided to fix them. So this is what she looks like now.

I don't know a woman or little girl that hasn't done this at one time or other some doing it repeatedly . So I guess its just a normal part of childhood and child curiosity.

At least it's only hair and will grow back.