I did my own school pictures this year. I just could not stomach paying $150 for the pictures that I needed. They are not professional but I am Happy with them!! Ekaterina age 9 Caleb age 6 Heather age 8 (9 in 6 weeks) Nikolas age 10 (soon to be 11)
Hannah age 7
The weather has been so beautiful!!!! I hope that everyone has had a good week. Its been a nice quiet week for me!!! Thank you, Lord!!
Quite awhile back I got this super strong feeling that God wanted me to pray with my children before School. I would get this feeling in the middle of the night and would wake up usually and not even think about as the busy day would get going. Well last night I kept getting the same feeling that we needed to start our school day praying (not just me praying silently for them as they go off but as a group together) and when I woke up it was soooooo strong and so just before school we all met in a circle and held hands and prayed. I prayed and then offered the chance to the kids and they were a little shy but i know as the days go by and they get used to it they will take part. It was such a beautiful feeling and one of the best parts is that as I was leaving the room Caleb came running up to me and said can I pray with just you. So now the tears are coming and I said of course. Do you want me to pray or do you want to?? He said I would to. He had the sweetest prayer for a 6 year old!!! I had a nice good cry and praised God for this idea and thanked Him for not letting me !! I wanted to share it because first I want to give God the glory for always being there and in case anyone else is stuggeling with their morning before school!!!
We had homegroup last night at our house and Nik took Lauren outside and and she was asking lots of pumkin questions. Wanted to know what those orange things were! Too cute!!!!! I love this picture!!
Not a ton going on today. Nate worked in the yard and Katie and I went to get groceries. Like I said not much too exciting!!
Tonight we are going to a friend from Churches for supper. Sango and Karen are cooking us a tradition Kenyan meal!! I cannot wait!!!! Hope you are all having a great Saturday!!
Friday, September 14, 2007
This is Hillsong United live. They are singing the song "solution" on the All of the above album. I am thinking that this is the winner for the next Haiti video. Read the words below. They are so powerful. Let me know if it touches you as it touches me. I sit in my car and cry everytime I hear it.
It is not a human right
To stare not fight
While broken nations dream
Open up our eyes, so blind
That we might find
The Mercy for the need
Singin Hey Now
Fill our hearts with your compassion
Hey Now
As we hold to our confession
Yeah
It is not too far a cry
To much to try
To help the least of these
Politics will not decide
If we should rise
And be your hands and feet
Singing Hey Now
Fill our hearts with your compassion
Hey Now
As we hold to our confession
Woah-oh-oh,
God be the solution
Woah-oh-oh
We will be Your hands and be Your feet
.Yeah, yeah
Higher than a circumstance
Your promise stands
Your love for all to see
Higher than protest line and dollar signs
Your love is all we need
Only you can mend the broken heart
And cause the blind to see
Erase complete the sinners past
And set the captives free
Only you can take the widows cry
And cause her heart to sing
Be a father to the fatherless
Our savior and our king
We will be your hands, we will be your feet
We will run this race
On the darkest place, we will be your lightWe will be your light
Skillet Toby Mac Nik and Grace Michelle Rosemy, Julie and myself (yes that is hot chocolate in my hand!)
I am stealing pictures from Julie as we didn't bring our camera. So sorry Julie but your pictures were great! If you read both of our blogs then I apologize!! LOL
We had a great time last night even though the heavens opened up and poured on us!!! While the bands were playing I didn't really feel the rain. I was able to keep warm by dancing around. I also realized that during Toby Mac the rained pretty much stopped until the very end! Thank you God for that reprieve!!!
I have to say I went mostly because I love skillet and I like some of Toby Mac songs on the radio. However I LOVED Toby Mac! I would see them again in a heart beat. They have a great stage show and the kids just loved it!!! It was our summer family splurge and I am sooooo glad we went!!
Tonight we are going to the Allegan county fair to see Toby Mac and Skillet. Nathan and I love skillet and the kids love Toby Mac (I like a lot of his stuff but not sure about the really rappy stuff) It should be a fun time. We are going with friends and some of their kids as well!
Please pray for NO rain. I can handle a little bit of cold but not rain.
For those of you who do not know who skillet is here is one of their videos from youtube.
They have a great message for young adults and at the last skillet concert we went to they really proclaimed Jesus Christ!
Not much going on today here at the Yonker household. I am just working on cleaning up the house as we have some people coming over for dinner this evening and then we are going to "Authentic" at chuch tonight. This is a service for our college aged ministry. I know, I know I am not college age anymore but I LOVE it!!!
I do not have much to post but thought I would put a plug out there for my business today.
I have never done this on my blog but thought it might be fun.
I have been an Avon rep for over 4 years now. It is so hard to believe that I would last this long doing something from home. It has been a good way for me to have some fun money over the last few years.
Also for those that have not seen a book in years its not just makeup anymore. We have toys, clothes, shoes, Jewerly, purses, ect.....
If you would like a book just email me at telltheworld5@gmail.com and I can either send you an online link for the books or I can get a book to you.
Also you can check out my website at www.youravon.com/byonker If you live in the Allendale, Hudsonville, Jenison area I can deliver your items right to you door. If you do not live in the area but would still like to order anything all you have to do is put in my name/phone number and I will still receive 25%. If you would like to do that email me privately and I will give you my number.
Also we are always looking for new reps to sell avon and I can help you with that. It is only $10 to start up and you do not have to do any home parties, no inventory and its hasn't been a hard sell! :)
Thank you to all my dear friends that have kept me in business for the last 4 years!!
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
These are just a few pictures of some of the Haitians that I just loved!! Peter was one of our translators!! He was so genuinly nice!!!!!!!
This was the worship leader at church! He could really get them fired up. Notice the heavy suit. A reminder that it was 115 degrees that day!!!!
Tipap and Marilian. (I spelled his name wrong I am sure) Two of the lifelines employees!!
I am working on putting some more Haiti pictures on the blog.
This is where we stayed. It really quite nice.
It has a kitchen, living area, nice belcony, laundry room, 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and and office.
Kimberely took this picture of us while in Haiti. We really were there together! LOL This was a really hot day!!
Caleb and Hannah's first day of school! They were so excited!!
This is Ryan. Caleb's best friend. He lives right across the street!! It was his first day of Kindergarten today too!! We are very blessed that they have the same schedule and the same teacher!!!
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Hard to believe its the first day of school!!! The kids were very excited with only a few butterflies!!!! (I was very excitd to find my batteries and charger this morning still packed away in a suitcase that was already put in storage!)
Caleb and Hannah do not go to school until tomorrow.
Cannot believe that Nik is in 5th grade this year and Heather and Katie are in 3rd!!!
At the bus stop with friends!
Well Tori! You are right those videos are very cool and yes they are a week old! LOL However we just got back from a long time of camping and of course since we have arrived home from Haiti we can not find our battery charger and extra batteries and my camera went dead just before camping so NO pictures. Of course today is also the first day of school and of course no camera. Sigh.
The kids are so excited about going to school this morning. Parts of me are very happy and parts of me are a little sad. The summer went so fast.
The 2nd video is what the first part went right into!!
My prayer is that we are NEVER ashamed of JESUS!!! JESUS is the ONLY truth you will ever find!!! I pray that if you are reading this and you do NOT have Jesus as your Savior that you will email us to find out more about Him!!!
Nothing special going on. I have been trying to work on a very special video but youtube is giving me some issues. Hopefully soon I will have it up and running.
Have you ever been told by God something but you just are not sure what He means??
God woke me up the other night with a very big "Be Prepared". That was all I heard. I have been trying to discern this but its making me crazy.
I know with Nate being called into the comissioned pastor process that God is changing our direction in life and yes it is a little scary but also a ton exciting.
If you could keep us both in your prayers that would be awesome!!!
Monday, August 20, 2007
Amy and the translator that helped her giving the salvation message and showing the kids how to put the salvation bracelets together. House in the village. I believe this is the man that gave lifelines to land to house the mission and the feeding program. cute little girl at the feeding program.
These are some of the houses that we see everyday from the mission grounds
The kids eating lunch after VBS. See them all in the shirts that they made during craft time Trying to stand up in the truck as its moving. It was much more comfortable to stand then to sit. After a really hard rain the road was washing out.
I had an nice comment from Tori this morning that I need to update so I will post some more random pictures and things. Its been very hard for me to sort out my thoughts from this last mission trip to Haiti. I LOVE Haiti. I never thought I would ever say that. I always thought my path would stay in Russia and that we would end up working in the orphanages there. Then God brought us to China to adopt Hannah and I thought maybe God would have me go back there on a mission trip someday God has totally thrown me big time. I cry when I fly into Haiti because I am so happy to be back and when we walk out to the plane in Haiti to come home I cry because I do not want to leave. God has placed a burden on my heart for the Haitian people and I have come to love them. God is so cool how he places different people on our hearts. Some people he chooses to stay close to home and that is so important too. some of us he chooses to go overseas. This last trip to Haiti was more about Evangelism and sharing Jesus to the people and I found I LOVED that part of it. I am not a builder of house and I cannot do things like that but I LOVE building God's kingdom. I would encourage anyone who to do at least one mission trip in their lifetime. Wether it is local, or somewhere in the United States or wether you feel God calling you overseas. The Great Commission challages us to go out and share the Gospel. I want to Challenage all of you too. I know some of you will worry about the costs. HOWEVER, if God truly is calling you to go HE will provide every single penny!!! I know that for a fact!! I did not have one penny to my name to go to Haiti!! God went above and beyond to provide every single penny needed!!! The extra money just went in a fund for things that we were doing in Haiti. So please pray about where God might be leading you!!! My heart is forever changed!
(these pictures are curtosy of Tammy Berghorst!!) This is jaque (not sure of spelling) he is the worship leader at the church in luly where we went. This man has a fire and get the church praising!!
This was very funny!!! We had communion at church at it was real wine. Here Troy was telling me that in case I wanted a bigger cup. It was an awesome moment taking communtion with the Haitian people. We truly are one in Christ!!!! This is Nathan's good friend Pastor Fritsno. He is such a gentle spirit and a true man of god!!! He walks 2 1/2 hours down the mountain everytime he hears Nathan is in Haiti just to say hi. Very humbeling.
We arrived home late last night!!! It was truly an amazing trip!!!! I will be adding more pictures and updates in the weeks ahead. I just wanted to thank you all for the prayers and financial help!!! I loved every single second of the trip and its a little hard to be home without tearying up about the things that happened. The team we went with was AWESOME!!!! There were a lot of tears at the airport last night and it was hard to part after such a powerful week!!! Pray that we are able to discern what God wants us to do with what we learned on the trip.
On of our team members shared this video with us today. (Thanks Amy) It again brought tears to my eyes as it shows our earthy stuggle so well and shows us that all we need is to give it up and turn to the Lord!!!!!!!!!
It’s a skit that was done at Winterfest this year set to “Everything” by the band Lifehouse. It brought me to tears and reminded me how careful I need to be every single day to cling to Jesus. We have so many “distractions” that can come against us, tempt us, and tear us away from God. And they will tear our life apart. But, if we spend our days right next to God, including Him in our daily activities, letting Him lead us, we will be protected.
I pray that it moves you as it moved me.
If you need Jesus to come to your rescue and help you fight off the distractions, temptations, and harmful influences in your life all you have to do is ask for His help. Get down on your knees and pray to God. Ask Him to forgive you for your sins, tell Him that you believe that He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to die for you, so you could spend eternity in relationship with Him. If you just made a decision to follow Jesus for the first time, or rededicated your life to Him, please let us know.
Due to time constraints here!! Its been busy, busy, busy but very good. If you are checking this blog for updates from me for our week please go to either one of these sites.
This is for all those that are not following us on the church blog.
After a 2 hour sit on the plane in Miami (a passenger not showing up and they had to get one piece of luggage off the plane due to security reasons. Imagine human hands having to find one bag out of hundreds of pieces of luggage or more) we arrived in Haiti at 6:30 pm our time instread of 4:00pm. We were all very tired and we had a 2 hour ride back to the mission in the pitch black but we made it very safely and only little sore from the ride. We had a wonderful Authentic Kreyold meal and then pretty much went to bed.This morning we were all a litt more awake and we went to the church in Luly this morning. It was an amazing day. You can always fell God at this little church near the Ocean. It turned out that the convention that we raised money for was actually today and we were all there to take part in this!!! Wow! It was also the church's 14th birthday. There was a wedding, a baby dediction, 2 baptisms (in the early morning before we arrived). Nate was asked to pray for the wedding and the baby dediction and it was so neat to just be a part of all this. There was ton of singing and it was incredible!!! It gives me goosebumps everytime we take part in these services and it is also very humbling to know that God called each one of us to Haiti and this time and to take part. They knew were coming so they deciced to have the convetion when we were there. Church was packed and after 3 hours it was Nate's time to preach! It went so well and the truth was spoken and please pray that hearts were opened and that some of those that were there would come to call Christ, their Lord and savior. Its has been raining and thunderstorming but the storms here are awesome!!!! We are getting ready for our first day of bible school tomorrow. Lots of preperation but we are all in high spirits and feeling great!! Thanks for the prayers. They are being felt!!!!! Hopefully we will be able to get some pictures on soon. We had some really fun times today with the Haitians!!!!
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Just under 48 hours until we leave!!! woo hoo!!! I cannot believe the time is almost here!
The kids are all packed and arrangements all set in place. We have an awesome team going and I could not be more excited!!!! Thank you all for the prayers that you have already given us and for all the donations that we have been given!! We cannot wait to share Christ's love with the people in Haiti!!! I will be trying to post here but most of the posts will probably be here:
We have to be at the airport by 4:45am on Saturday morning and we will not get into Haiti until Late Saturday night so not sure if I will be able to post anything until Sunday afternoon or evening.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Just some misceleanous pictures for you today!! We had an awesome church service and they also comissioned our Haiti team!! It was awesome to have most of our team together today!!
These pictures are just ones that I had been hoping to post for awhile now but I kind of lost where i hat put them and just found them
The first one is of one of our campfire skillet dinners!! Yum!!! They are so good!
This one had Onions, whole mushrooms, green peppers, Brauts, Zuchinni, summer squash and some other items in it!! So good
This picture is of a little girl named Lauren! She is a part of our homegroup and she got stuck on the bottom of our chair a few weeks back. It was just too cute NOT to take a photo!!! :)
This is a picture of our whole group that is going to Haiti. There was only one person missing and that is because she lives out of state. Its going to be a really fun group!!
Ekaterina age 9
Caleb age 6
Heather age 8 (9 in 6 weeks)
Nikolas age 10 (soon to be 11)
Hannah age 7
