Babooskha!

My one and only grandson Aiden is now 2 years and 5 months old. He calls me (бабушка) - babooshka. However it comes out as Booka, Booga, Booska! I love to hear him say it, it is Russian for Gramma. I wanted him to call me something that everyone would know he was talking about me or wanted me. And I wanted a reminder of the little grammas in Russia who are homeless and starving. Anyway let me share with you a little about our trip to Russia and why the name Babooskha means so much to me.

When Chuck and I went to Russia on a mission trip the grammas there stole my heart. There was one in particular who was in McDonalds and she was walking from table to table begging for food. I asked what she was doing and Chuck told me she was hungry. I said then get her some food and give her some money!! I wanted to cry. So he got up and gave her money and she got herself a cup of coffee, it was real cold outside. Then she stood by the trash can and tears were streaming down her face. It was one of the saddest things I had ever seen. I then told him to give her more money, so when he did, she followed us outside and kept saying Thank you, thank you in Russian and was crying.

Then in Red Square as we make our way back to the hotel, the little babooshkas were huddled up in the doorways out of the cold, they were hungry and homeless. Late at night there were small children in the tunnels where you cross the streets playing instruments with boxes in front of them for you to put money in.

I couldn't take it. If I ever go back, I am taking all my savings and giving it away. I might even sell everything I have, because I could not go back and not give everything I have. I am so so so blessed!!!!

Life Is Good!!

God has been so good to me. I have realized just how much He sustains me lately. I dedicated this year to just renewing my committment to Him, to getting out of my comfort zone, going to some retreats and just enjoying time with my Creator. I have to say I am refreshed, refueled, revived and revved up and ready to go.

I have been spending as much time as I possibly can reading the Word and chatting with Him. Much like King David, I have been having these long conversations with God, about what I understand and don't understand. What should I do about certain things, really more about...am I doing the right thing? I don't know sometimes. There are situations that come up that I am not comfortable with and if I am not sure if they are right, then I won't do it. So I have been having my little talks with Jesus, telling Him all my troubles, my concerns, and asking alot of questions, and for direction.

I have emptied my heart of everything I could think of that is in there and now I am filling it up with His word. I am letting go and letting Him take it until He tells me I should move or not move. His Word is cleansing me. I don't know if you ever have things that come up that you are not sure how you should handle them, but in this season I have some of those things, so for now I put them on His shelf in His office and until He tells me what I should do, I am not doing anything with them.

So what else is going on? I am going to a Back to the Bible Conference in May, in June I am going to an Infinite Grace Conference for Women with
Women of Faith and I am so looking forward to what God is going to reveal to me while I am there. I was thinking how the world has so much to entertain us and so much to distract us, and some of those things I enjoy, but honestly, I don't think I have enjoyed myself as much as I have this year in a long time, just giving my time to Him

How Should Dead Men Live?

How should dead men live? In reality, they shouldn't! There is always a problem when dead men think they are still alive. Just look at all the horror movies built around this theme. When the dead live, there is trouble!

Since we are dead, what are we supposed to do?

We are supposed to yield to the Spirit of God and allow Him to live God's life through us. We must reckon ourselves dead to the things of this world and alive to the things of God through the Spirit.

When we can finally see that we are dead and that any life we hope to live must be lived through us by God, then we are ready to be free from the bondage of sin.

How would you have to describe your life? Is it "Night of the living dead?" Or, "Life of the living Lord?"

The choice is yours. You can choose to let a dead man live in your life, or you can choose to let a living Lord be in control. Which will it be for you?

Wow!!! That Got My Attention!!

Recently I went to a Women's Retreat and Paula Rinehart was the speaker. She was pretty amazing and I had a blast! Of course if you are woman and you are out with a bunch of other women, you know what I am talking about.

The conference was awesome, the jest of it was how everyone has their own knapsack and we have a tendency to get into their knapsack instead of taking care of our own knapsack. It was about how we want to change everyone else, we know what they need, but we don't do anything about fixing our ownselves and how God is the one who is going to take care of everyone else's issues, He doesn't need us in the way.

So ...... I took it to heart. It is easy to see what is wrong with the other person, I guess that is why instead of getting the plank out of someone else's eye, we need to get the beam out of our own.

Not only did we get blessed and reprimanded. We laughed, joked, studied, prayed, broke bread together and parted promising to keep in touch. We left feeling prayed up, filled up, loved and ready for war, we were going back to the front lines, no longer tempted to to get in other's business but ready to take care of our own!!!

I am blessed!!

Prayer for Shawn & Nathan

This is a prayer request for two boys. Shawn is 13 yoa, his mother is serving in Iraq, his father just got out of prison where he spent a year for drug possession. Shawn has been with a friend of his mother's. He is a single male with a 14 yr old son. Anyway, Shawn is angry, I am not sure the reason, because we really have not gotten the chance to sit down to talk with him. I am sure it has alot to do with his father and mother being absent in his life. He is a trouble maker at school, he gets angry and will punch any kid who happens to be around. His guardian has taken away things from him and yesterday it was football. This kid loves sports, he is good at them, but very disrepectful to coaches and whomever. Yesterday he punched a boy in the face and is now in juvenile for 24 hours. He left crying, I am sure not because he is sorry for what he did, but sorry he has to face consequences. I know he has some deep issues, I just felt led to ask everyone to say a prayer for him that God will send the right person to him to reach him or help him.

Then there's Nathan. He lived with us for eight months, he came from the boys home. He is an awesome kid, hardworking, loves church. He came from a family who had seven kids, he was eighteen and had never had a room of his own, was sexually abused by his brother and hungered for his mom's love. When he started doing well, she started calling him alot, he decided he wanted to go home, he has been gone for three months. He called the other day, he is living with an older sister, he was crying and said he tried to commit suicide, that his family doesn't care about him, he wanted to come back. We told him he could, he called three days in a row, then we have heard nothing, I am not sure what happened to him. So if you would lift him up in prayer. Pray that God draws these two boys to Himself, that He turns their hearts toward Him, because He is the only hope they have.

Thank you for your prayers and for caring, God created them, He loves them and only He can make them whole. Hugs to you all!!

Cancer Free - Four Months

Lori asked how Chuck, my husband was doing. The Praise Report is he is cancer free. We opted not to do the 12 Week Radiation with the Radiation seeds and went to Dr. David Ellis in Arlington, Texas who is a Prostate Cancer Specialist who used to recommend Radiation and Chemo but now believes they are both terrible treatments, he said they only have a 52% success rate and that is not good enough. He practices a new FDA treatment called Cryotherapy or Cryoblation, it is freezing the cells which kills them on contact. It is minimally invasive and has around a 94% success rate. So, now Chuck's PSA score is .03 which is better than they hoped and shows no sign of cancer at all!! Thanks to the Lord and thank you Dr. Ellis for being open to Alternative Treatments to cancer.

What an Amazing God!

I share Einstein's affirmation that anyone who is not lost on the rapturous awe at the power and glory of the mind behind the universe "is as good as a burnt out candle."

The French Mathematician, Lecompte de Nouy, examined the laws of probability for a single molecule of high dissymmetry to be formed by the action of chance. De Nouy found that, on an average, the time needed to form one such molecule of our terrestrial globe would be about 10 to the 253 power, i.e. billions of years.
"But," continued de Nouy ironically, "let us admit that no matter how small the chance it could happen, one molecule could be created by such astronomical odds of chance. However, one molecule is of no use. Hundreds of millions of identical ones are necessary. Thus we either admit the miracle or doubt the absolute truth of science."