Good, good or good?

I have been thinking about the flower garden make-over. Last night, Cory and I planted some ground cover in the bare ugly spots.  Looking forward to seeing the area fill in with attractive plants and flowers.

I find it easier to pull out ugly weeds than pretty flowers.

 An easy word picture as well with weeds representing the bad or sinful things/attitudes in my life.

 NO question that those need to go or should not be present in my life. 

No one questions the harmfulness and ugly that enter our lives with sin. 

While it still may be hard to weed them out identifying them remains easy in the majority of cases.

But what if we change the word picture up a bit.

 To pull up pretty flowers can be hard. 

Much harder than pulling up ugly weeds.

While I thought about changing the flowers long and hard, the motivation to switch things up did not occur until I had new plants waiting for a place.

Life too can be crowed and overgrown with good things. 

So many positive, valid things that we do not have the time, energy or motivation to change. 

Change or should we say 'pruning' hurts. It causes ugly bare spots in our lives that take time to become pretty again. 

For a season things will look and feel strange, weird and or unsightly. 

We may not meet other's expectations, especially when we say 'no' to something we've done a long time or when folks know us to say 'yes', often. 

We may want to turn back the clock and return to the 'normal' feeling and looking old way.

Nevertheless, many times new is better.

Sometimes the 'normal, old way' no longer really fits our lives or goals.

Possibly we've out grown that job or task.

 Maybe we need a change to recapture joy and excitement in our lives.


Maybe by stepping out or jumping out of our comfort zones, we will experience the Lord in a new and powerful way.

 I know my prayer life gets stimulated when I'm facing unknowns and questions.

The bare ugly dirt can represent potential: potential for growth, capacity for improvement, the possiblety for beauty, capability to develop further the good parts of our lives that have been stunted due to overcrowding.

 Stripped, empty, exposed, unattractive dirt can also look like margin.

Margin means having bare dirt, empty time or space in your life to handle the unexpected in a excellent, healthy fashion.

Maintaining healthy, nourishing margins in your life takes work, takes self-care, takes saying no to decent things.

A book I return to every now and then to remind me about the importance of margin.

[Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives by Richard Swenson helped me in this area link to more information/reviews]

Pulling up flowers rarely happens accidentally or by mistake. To make a real difference one needs to be intentional. Deciding between good, good, and good can be hard. There's often a better choice, but we need the Lord to know what it looks like for us.

Courage my friend! The Lord gives direction and wisdom to those who ask Him and then listen carefully for His answer. 

Flower garden make-over

School. Taxes. E-mail update. Adoption update. Negotiations completed for the 'rehab' garden land rental.

Perspective a bit off...the sidewalk is fairly straight and you can see both ends in this picture. 

Lots of office type work this week but also some physical work.

Sorting through some of the house stuff, gifting to others from the bounty we have been blessed with recently.

Also started Eli sorting items that he wants in the USA vs. give away vs. storage.

One of my coping mechanisms when I cannot control life or it gets to the point that I feel overwhelmed is to organize and give away.

Makes me calmer and happy!

Guests coming next week so that helps to increase the motivation.

Another thing making my heart happy today is that Cory worked hard to redo our flowers/plants near the side walk.

Some of the plants will be moved and shared with other spots on campus.

Sure looks different than when we visited here 8 years ago in the spring!

Started to battle the last couple of years with a few of the aggressive plants who attempted to take over the area and were repressing the other plants.

For instance the blue flowers in the top picture:did move a few to a new area as Anna likes them.

They should fill in under the hibiscus in time.

Last week Cory traded for some new plants and flowers which raised the question of where we would be planting them.

So a major change for the side flower garden.

Will take a bit to fill in but the plants should be growing well before we leave for our trip to the USA.

While waiting for these pictures to load the list arrived from Global Partners of what we need to do during our time in the USA so that we can return to Haiti for another term.

Hard to believe that we moved to Haiti one week after Eli turned one and this year we will return after seeing him settled into college.

So a new to-do list [thankfully not real different than our last 'Partnership Development training.]

Think I need to go organize some more!

Update and flowers

Not much news this week. So I'll share some tiny wildflower pictures from around our yard. Most are only a few millimeters across. Sadly I don't know names.

Anna took some days off to work on neglected subjects that lagged behind during the days she played volleyball every morning before school. Now with the local school in session volleyball only occurs in the afternoons or Saturdays.

We also enjoyed our time with visitors which cut into after supper 'homework time'.

Eli's working at his school work and enjoying reading some of the books he received for his birthday.

Cory's focused on the agricultural book and making good progress.

Mexican Heather

Besides school this week I've worked on some other paper work and enjoyed some of Eli's books so we can discuss them together.

By next week all of the Wesleyan missionaries should be back on LaGonave ready to celebrate the opening of the new nursing school on Wednesday, October 1st.

Choosing of the students occurring this week so please pray.

Not much news out of IBESR, keep praying. September Request here.These tiny flowers can be easily overlooked.

 Not real easy to even get a picture of as the camera wants to focus on the bigger background objects.

Trying to hold one's hand steady while pushing the camera button also adds to the challenge.

But once one starts to look you can find and appreciate the beauty and diversity of these tiny blossoms.

It reminds me how the Lord tells us he knows every hair on our heads.

The Creator God who shaped the countless galaxies also takes the time and thought to make these flowers unique.

They praise Him and point to Him!

They encourage me because I know He cares for every small detail of my life.

He cares for the small details that I cannot even comprehend.

As long as I can remember that it becomes easier to 'trust and obey'.

Guavas and lilies

Yesterday morning and today the air almost vibrates with songs of birds, bugs and frogs. Yesterday we did receive a half-inch of rain so maybe more later with the singing frogs.

Heard last night that the LaGonave hospital move needed to be pushed back so our visitors may be coming on Monday if vehicle repairs happen today.

Enjoying and sharing guavas with friends this week. 

The smaller ones are regular pink seedlings from Florida. 

One turned out to be similar to 'Ruby Supreme', which is mild flavored, sweet and reported to be so big the fruit flies can't get into it as much as other varieties.

 The fruit flies/worms aren't bad so far this year so it may just be the year.

The big green guava is a seedling of 'Bankok Large'. 

It is huge and without the usual guava odor and flavor. 

It matures very slowly so the worms and bugs ruin them before they really ripen, but they are good at the mature green stage like a crunchy vegetable.

School, book editing and life continue as normal. 

Anna is feeling much better with only a slight cough remaining.

Hanging up clothes on the line yesterday I noticed that the giant spider lily bloomed.

 In past years, caterpillars damaged the plant so badly I did not get to enjoy the flowers.

 I only picked the blooms that had already opened so I can refresh the cup later. 

They produce a faint, sweet smell. 

For the flower lovers, it is a Crinum lily, sometimes called the purple spider lily.

Welcome Spring.

Actually we do not notice much difference here in 'Spring', other than warmer days.

Loaded and ready to go.

But I change our small flags that hang in the living room and school room to reflect the seasonal change in the North.

After a weekend of rainy weather Cory's eager to be planting and outside working in the dirt but needs to find time to work on accounting and taxes!

Yesterday he headed out after watering some nursery plants and trees.

Looks like they could use some edible landscaping. 

The truck already loaded the night before headed East to deliver some fruit trees to a local orphanage.

The guys traveled along with him and after finding good locations for the various trees around a new home they spent some time planting them before heading home.

Not sure of all the plants they brought but know they had banana plants, mulberry, chaya and more but my plant guy is not here to list them so..

Cory enjoy's sharing his trees and plants especially to goat-free locations.

Today their task required a much lighter touch as they transplanted very small Artemisia plants into separate sections.

Cory after starting Jenner and Evon on this project remembered a consultation request to check out Brother Benjamin's cabbage croup so they jumped in the truck to find out what's going on at his place.

Eli, Anna and I continue to work on our school year, week 15. 

Today we started late as usual on Wednesdays because of my chatting on-line with my folks.

Not even 5 minutes into the start of school we received the shocking news from Cory that the pastors would be meeting this afternoon in the House of Hope.

The same House of Hope we planned to clean next week, combining post- and pre- team cleaning into one event!

So rapidly we gathered cleaning supplies and went down for a quick organization, dusting, sweeping and bathroom cleaning.

Sad how fast good time management mutated to look into procrastination!

But we did a good job and still managed to fit in some quality school work before lunch.

School difficulty pushed up a bit this week and next by the sounds of our neighborhood children enjoying pre-Easter vacation!

No hot water. No clothes dryer. But how many people can enjoy orchids right next to their clothes line?

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