Party #2 occurred on December 18 in Kosciusko. Paul’s parents came over and we cooked and baked and cooked and baked. In the end we had a great time with friends and family.

Hanging out with great-granddad Tom

Cupcakes that took me all night to make and decorate. I hope I made Shannon and Sharon proud.

“Gimme the CAKE!!”

Yummy!

“It’s so good I just have to stop and give thanks.”

Our nephew Isaiah enjoying the party.

Lily in her little tutu my mom made.

She has not let go of the baby doll. Thanks Aunt Harriett and Uncle Johnny

So there will be several Lily posts to come. Sorry, lots of fun things have happened recently and I am behind in blogging. Other stuff has happened and I promise to sit down sometime soon and write about them. But first…

We journeyed to Nachitoches, LA for the Festival of Lights. For a frame of reference for you, this is the town where “Steel Magnolias” was filmed. We watched a parade and then headed down to 1)stand in line for a bathroom for about 45 minutes, 2)eat tons of food including meat pies, kettle corn, and funnel cake, and 3)watch the fireworks and the Christmas lights come on.

Waiting for the parade to start.

We had to wait a while.

The kiddie train

Hillbilly float…maybe it is a cajun float instead.

Lily and one of her prizes that Cap got for her.

Today I saw $2 sitting on the microwave and I wondered out loud, “What can you buy for two dollars?” Other than cheap fast-food, not much. In Naples I could buy so much with a mere 2 Euros. I could get fruit or vegetables or a coffee or cappuccino or a yummy snack. The list goes on and on of things I could get for 2 Euros.

I wonder what $2 will could by in other countries. Could it buy clothes? Could it buy food? Maybe a pair of shoes. Maybe a toy. How much starvation could end on just $2 a day? I wonder….I wonder.

How much can life change in three years? The answer… a lot. Since we have been back several things have caught my eye that are different or new than when we left. Before you look at the few things on this list, I will readily admit…they are stupid things. There have been more serious things, but it is late and I didn’t want to post something heavy. After all, as my friend Cortney often tells me, it is not good to eat after 7:00 p.m. So maybe it is not good to write about serious stuff after 7 at night either.

First, on the list we have….

I have not tried these yet, but they look fun. And I put them on here mainly so my friend Grace, who is all but obsessed with them, will know they exist for future reference.

Second, is the…..

redbox??? What is that?? That’s the same question I had. If you should arrive in America after living overseas for a few years and decide to go rent a movie, you will be hard pressed to find a Blockbuster anywhere. No, instead you will have to go to Wal-Mart (and maybe other stores … I have only noticed them at Wal-Mart). There you will find a big red box where you can rent movies for like a $1. Crazy.

Third, we have the Kindle or some variation of it.
News of these had made it across the ocean, but I had no idea how popular they are. Are the days of flipping pages really gone….really? I am not a technology-hater, but I just really like the sound of pages turning, the joy at closing the back cover and putting the book back on the shelf.

And lastly, the reason I thought about doing this post in the first place (Mainly because I ate about a quarter of the container tonight before dinner) we have…(drumroll please)

Philadelphia Spinach and Artichoke Cream Cheese. Just stop and minute and think about that. I would like to thank Paul’s parents for introducing this high calorie but s0-delicious-I-could-eat-the-whole-container snack to me. It is great, fabulous, tasty, and will make your jeans tighter in the morning. So be warned.

My last post was about Lottie Moon, and I hope by reading it you learned some stuff about her and why she lived and died serving the Chinese.

This time of year is when Southern Baptist take up the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, which goes straight to the International Mission Board.

But that is kinda vague, right? What does that money do? Well, here is a short, inconclusive list:

-buys ministry supplies, including Bibles, Jesus videos, etc.
-pays missionary salaries
-pays missionary medical insurance
-makes it possible for missionaries not to have to have a second job in order to support their families, which enables them to be able to focus soley on doing the work they were sent to do
-pays for housing
-funds evangelism outreaches

Again, these are just a few ways your contribution to the Lottie Moon Offering are at work. Please, please give. You can never fully understand the difference it makes in the lives of not only the missionaries but the people they are serving.

Today’s China is a world of rapid change. It’s home to 1.3 billion individuals-one-fifth of the world’s population. Village dwellers flock to trendy megacities with exploding populations. And China holds its own in the world’s economy. It’s very different from the vast farmland Lottie Moon entered in the 1800s. But one thing hasn’t changed: China’s need for a Savior.

Lottie Moon-the namesake of the international missions offering-has become something of a legend to us. But in her time Lottie was anything but an untouchable hero. In fact, she was like today’s missionaries. She was a hard-working, deep-loving Southern Baptist who labored tirelessly so her people group could know Jesus.

Her mission
When she set sail for China, Lottie was 32 years old. She had turned down a marriage proposal and left her job, home and family to follow God’s lead. Her path wasn’t typical for an educated woman from a wealthy Southern family. But Lottie did not serve a typical God. He had gripped her with the Chinese peoples’ need for a Savior.

For 39 years Lottie labored, chiefly in Tengchow and P’ingtu. People feared and rejected her, but she refused to leave. The aroma of fresh-baked cookies drew people to her house. She adopted traditional Chinese dress, and she learned China’s language and customs. Lottie didn’t just serve the people of China; she identified with them. Many eventually accepted her. And some accepted her Savior.

Her vision

Lottie’s vision wasn’t just for the people of China. It reached to her fellow Southern Baptists in the United States. Like today’s missionaries, she wrote letters home, detailing China’s hunger for truth and the struggle of so few missionaries sharing the gospel with so many people-472 million Chinese in her day. She shared another timely message, too: the urgent need for more workers and for Southern Baptists passionately supporting them through prayer and giving.

In 1912, during a time of war and famine, Lottie silently starved, knowing that her beloved Chinese didn’t have enough food. Her fellow Christians saw the ultimate sign of love: giving her life for others. On Christmas Eve, Lottie died on a ship bound for the United States.

But her legacy lives on. And today, when gifts aren’t growing as quickly as the number of workers God is calling to the field, her call for sacrificial giving rings with more urgency than ever.

We spent last weekend in New Orleans, hanging out at the aquarium and zoo, walking around eating way too much and seeing good friends and their kids.

Olivia Breedlove, the soon-to-be middle daughter of our friends, Brandon and Melissa. Melissa is an awesome photographer. To see some of her stuff click http://melissabreedlove.com/.

Lily and the pumpkins that are as big as she is.

Oh, my…the goodness that spills over in this place is almost too much to handle.

These people were everywhere….EVERYWHERE!

I have no idea what they are looking at…just thought it was a sweet picture.

Mikayla, the eldest of the Breedlove girls. Precious, just precious. She made me want Lily to have long, blonde hair that I could put in pigtails. But then I remembered Lily will one day have long, RED hair I can put in pigtails and I was happy.

“Can I really pick one to take home?”

Does he look cool pushing that stroller or what?

And we end with this…it wasn’t even taken on the same day.

Last week, Paul’s dad, Paul, AKA Cap, was in a fishing tournament in Venice, LA. If you have no idea where that is, allow me to tell you. Get a map, find Louisiana, locate New Orleans, and go south and you will find Venice floating in the Gulf of Mexico.

We all decided to join Cap and his last weigh-in. He and his partner, Skip, did really well, but unfortunately several other teams caught record-breaking weight redfish. Here are some pics from the trip.

A couple of men were hanging up all these tuna and snapper.

Nana and Lily

Cap and Lily