The Guys on the road...

They are all teens, all BoY, and all around just plain fun. 

One of the huge benefits of traveling is once school is done, we are free to travel to whatever is close and enjoy some things that we are not able to in Rochester! The favorite destination is anything with WaTeR!! When we were in Largo, we loved to go to Indian Rocks Beach. It was hot, and the water was only slightly cooler! :/ The guys liked to try their version of extreme anything you can come up with, and even though they had some very young eyes watching them, it deterred them not one whit. 

Little Braden and Bailey are twins, and children of a pastor at NTBC.  This is their first year homeschooling their older children, and they are all about field trips, and we were more than happy to join them!

I hope my boys weren't the influence for them trying this. It was comical, and they nearly had more sand in their hair that fell into their eyes than was left on the beach! 

 This is Josiah displaying his ability to turn the sand into a trampoline....

... and front flip. At least it was a soft landing! Well, kind of! 

Here they are debating their next move... or showing off their muscles... I am not quite sure which! I caught them off guard, so I will tent to believe the former! :) 

 Not sure what this was... I think a conch. When Dan and I were in Bahamas they made them into a salad that was more like a salsa with these nasty creatures chopped up into it.

 Levi made a good show of "eating" it...! YuCK!

 We were in Tallahassee on the weekend of the FSU and the OK Sooners game . The town was pretty much decked out with everything Seminole, and most every car we passed had painted windows advertising their school spirit. Sadly, FSU lost the game, but we were able to go to the stadium before we left the area. It was pretty neat to stand where just the day before there were thousands of excited fans cheering their hearts out for their team.

Just a few more perks of deputation! We are currently in Daytona Beach area and have driven by the Daytona 500 speedway. There are plenty of field trips planned... but unfortunately not enough time to do them all! Maybe when we come back to this area... for no doubt we will be returning! Probably the only thing that is a pretty much sure thing of this nomadic journey of deputation!

9/11 Memorial Lights

We went downtown Brooklyn to the waters edge that over looks the South Street Water front in Manhattan. The 9/11 lights are only used on the anniversary, and we were in the city this weekend. Not by our planning, but we were glad to be a part of this special anniversary as 10 years has passed. I was able to get some pictures, and although it was a very cloudy night, they had an etherial quality about them. I wish we could find our better camera, but our phones do well enough for my non-photography specialist self.

The pictures are from early evening to dark, and the clouds got heavier as the night wore on. 

Walking to the river front, I took this one through a fence, and the branch in the foreground looks pretty cool. 

You can't really see it clearly, but the Statue of Liberty is at the cluster of lights on the far left of the picture. From a different angle, I would love to see her centered in the lights. That would be breathtaking. 

Micah took this picture with an app called Photosynth. It allows you to take multiple shots and then stitches them together for a panoramic or 3D view. It is quite amazing. Maybe I have my photographer with me after all! Here you can see The Freedom Tower pretty well lit up in red white and blue. 

As the sun fully set, the clouds got lower and lower. They almost looked like a ball of light where the beams shot through. 

May the Lord of Glory so shine in our lives and hearts! 

Post Irene Clean-Up...

While traveling on deputation, our family is often asked if we sing, play instruments, do dramas (we have enough, thank you!) ... anything creative! Sadly we are not a musical family, nor are we terribly creative. We are however blessed with three strong sons, and a very wise father that has trained them in multiple trades and skills. They know everything from painting, roofing, car repair, landscaping, and tree removal... just to name a few! 

We have been in Connecticut since labor day, and Hurricane Irene preceded our arrival. She didn't do the mass damage they predicted, but what she did do, she did well!  One of the families from a supporting church lost half of their massive Maple tree, and were given quotes of exorbitant amounts to get it removed. We went over Sunday evening, and by the light of our headlamps of the truck, figured we could, if nothing else, give them a slightly smaller job to hire out. 

Dan first cut off the lower of the two large branches extending past the tree it landed in...

then it was on to decide how to drop the upper branch. 

He didn't want to obliterate the neighbors garden, if at all possible. While assessing how to best make the cut, he noticed a large, dead branch hanging just above the limb, and resting on the one he wants to cut. 

While it is dead, it is also water logged and would pack quite the force should it fall on his head! 

Levi and Micah devise a scheme to get the dead branch out first... successfully and without any concussions! 

Then on to the sawing... 

And falling... PeRFeCtLY, I might add! Chopping and dragging and more cutting and dragging! 

They were tossing the logs over the wooden fence, that you can see here has suffered some for the cause! 

But it was better than walking the logs around the very large and interminably long fence... a whole 10 more feet! 

In their de-fence, errr I mean defense... those logs were very heavy! 

Once the large branches extending the tree were down, it was on to the main trunk that was lodged in the neighbors tree. 

I wish you could get the scale of that tree. It was seriously huge. And it was raining all day on and off, hence the orange rain coat in some pictures. Which was pointless as it got soaked after 3 minutes, but it seemed the right thing to do! Notice the water line on the pants...! 

The saw had a 20" blade, and would make it through 2/3 of the tree on the thinnest part. At the base it was at least a 35" diameter. Pretty huge! And heavy, perfect to lodge a saw in! 

It is a little blurry... cell phone pics and rain dont agree...! 

But if you look you can just see a chain dangling from the cut. They took the whole saw apart and spared the bar. Thankfully as (obviously we don't travel with chain saws...!) all of the equipment was borrowed. 

 But once it was safe to try "plan B"...

the base of the tree was attacked. 

If you can see Levi's head there in front of the tree... he is pretty close to it and he looks like a little boy next to it! Some seriously massive logs were cut and stacked, and unbelievably.... the entire tree was taken down! They never thought they would accomplish the whole job, but after 8 hours it was finished. Praise the Lord there were no (major!) injuries, and they have a lot of wood to burn for next winter! 

I say no major injuries as there always has to be some excitement.  Aside from some scrapes, a few toes being whacked by a falling limb, and a minor stabbing between two brothers (not even related to the tree job... on Lunch break nonetheless!), all was well. We were thankful to be able to be a blessing to these folks, and they were very glad to have that tree down! 

Singing wherever they can!

While at a Bible Conference in Naples, NY with the Street's, some of the kids did an impromptu help with worship! Savannah is second in from the left, and her friends are all around her! Always fun to see her jump in whenever she can! 

We spend a little of each day at Keuka Lake, one of the finger lakes. It was warm and clear! Perfect for BFF's to hang on the dock...

Livvie and Savannah

  ... and to skip rocks with the guys!

Isaiah, Sam and Savannah

What a beautiful week, and what a wonderful conference! We learned some great truths that were compelling, provoking and encouraging. It doesn't get any better!

We are scannable!

Been seeing those handy scannable blocks all over?

Yup, so did I... and I had no idea what they were!! So I checked it out, and here you go! We are scannable now!

What that means, what we will do with it, and how far reaching it will be is yet to be seen!

How about a sticker on the car? Maybe on our prayer card? I don't quite know yet, but technology is getting crazier and crazier all the time!

We will start with the bad..

We have been in Tennessee since Monday night and the week has been amazing! We were at a conference for the first few days, and then have been traveling and sight seeing a little the past few days. Dan will present at a church Sunday morning, and then we will visit another church Sunday evening, and then early Monday AM we will head home to Rochester.  

Anyhow- I have had such a wonderful time! We have heard some amazing preaching and learned some very valuable things pertaining to our ministry. And we have seen some things that ... call me sheltered but... they shocked me. I mean really shocked me! 

Will you look at these?! Do parents think these are cute? Do they think it is a jOkE?! Have they no fear of ANYTHING?! 

Shocking. 

 Appalling.

 So very VERY SAD!!

 Here is their "disclaimer".

 "W.V. is for fun and if by keeping one of these dolls with you it helps any aspect of your life then it is a good thing."

Good thing like taking only a small dose of arsenic instead of a whole bottle. 

Then on the very bottom, it says "handmade this is not a toy" OK, then WHAT is it?! Exactly!! Serious and demonic and such a sad symptom of where our world has gone. Like I said I will start with the bad. I have more to chronicle the week, but I wanted this out there. We seriously need to pray for our country, our families, marriages, and children! 

Where has the month gone?!

What we had thought would be a casual few weeks of not traveling turned into a flurry of non-stop activity! We have traveled from NY to CT to FL and back, and then to Ukraine and back, and Dan has gone to NYC and back! WHEW! I am filled with things I want to try to digest and put into posts, but it all  is so compressed in my head!

We are leaving (aGaiN!) tomorrow at 6am to head to Tennessee - an "all female trip" except for Dan! The boys will be at Mt Lou San for a week at teen camp, and the rest of the J's (including the elusive O!) and Grandma Jane will be going to Johnson City, TN, for the week.

As a start to the "fill in" of the past month, I am embedding a video I made of our time in Ukraine with the Ireland family. What a wonderful (nearly) 2 weeks we had! We journeyed with them to each of the churches they have established, and Dan taught and preached several times. They organized a church picnic that had to be held indoors because of the rain. Ukraine did it's very best to make us feel right at home and it rained nearly every day we were there! We weren't too upset though. Any Rochestarian worth their salt can handle a few days of rain! 

Cyrillic Alphabet

The thing I found the most unexpected was the absolute lack of gleaning passive information. Ukraine is a dominantly Russian speaking culture, although many do speak the Ukrainian language as well. I had absolutely no knowledge of Russian, I couldn't even say "Yes", "no", or "excuse me"... which really was no big deal turns out. They seldom use that phrase! :) Not that they are rude people in any way. They are very hospitable, and very friendly. There is just so little room for "personal space" if one had to say "excuse me" every time there was a bump, nudge, or accidental push, nothing else would ever be said! 

Money symbol

I also had absolutely no knowledge of their alphabet. Some of the letters are the same, but they say a different sound. Like "KNIb" is "Kiev"!! (only the N has to be backwards!) I went to the store with Robin, and every jar, bottle and squeeze pack was a mystery purchase to me! Dan asked Kayla (16) to accompany him to the candy aisle to interpret for him! MUST get the right chocolate! Who cares if we have horseradish sauce instead of mayo... chocolate must be understood! 

equal to about $175 USD

Also they use hryvna (gre-vna) as currency. It is 8 to $1. 00 and they sell everything in metric. I was a little out of my element at the local store to say the least! I was thankful this was not a solo venture as I would have learned the hard way on alot of purchases!  It made me very conscious of the fact that when I get to Zambia I will be making these adjustments as well, and I will need to be very prayed up and prepared! I was overwhelmed just trying to figure things out, and I knew I could always ask Robin, and worst case scenario I was leaving in a few days! In Zambia, it will be many, many months of learning through trial and error I am sure! Perhaps now I know a few things I will learn much better before going! Like metric weights and their relation to how much I will need to buy! 

Probably the most impactful thing I learned is an absolute need for us (and ANY foreign field missionary!!) to LEARN THE LANGUAGE of the people we will be ministering to. We have planned all along to learn ChiChewa, a tribal language of the Eastern Province in Zambia, but after being in a foreign land where I knew absolutely nothing of the language, I felt all the more persuaded of the unquestionable necessity of it. I remember Robin asking over and over for prayer for her language skills and knowledge. She has been on the field for 16 years, and she still studies it for hours nearly every day. WOO!  She converses with them wonderfully, (in my opinion! We always ended up with what we were needing at the store, and none of the church members looked at her strangely so...!) but it does not minimize the fact that she is still working on mastering the language. Why? To REACH THE PEOPLE for JESUS CHRIST!!! 

I was blessed, humbled, encouraged, and compelled after our time with the Irelands! I hope you enjoy the video, and will get a glimpse of our time with the Irelands and in Ukraine. The song you hear in the beginning is played and sung by Edic, a member of a church in Belio Tsercov. I just LoVeD the song, and hopefully will have an English version of it someday. It sounds like such a beautiful love song of praise to the Lord and for the Word of God- who knows... perhaps one day we will sing it in ChiChewa in Zambia!



Ukraine with the Irelands from Janice Jalowiec on Vimeo.