Saturday, October 15, 2011

Wisdom from God through Veggie Tales (posted by K)

It's amazing how God chooses to speak to us through random means. We've been mildly sick around here for the past couple of days and trying to complete tasks both around the house and for the ministry and it's been a little draining. Sometimes tasks and goals seem insurmountable at times and those little thoughts like to pop into our head to discourage us.

Today we were watching my (Kristine) favorite Veggie Tale movie with Jenna. It's called, "Sumo of the Opera." I love it because it has so many fun elements to it. Among those, it includes St. Patrick and it has a musical parody of the Mikado. Seriously, it's the best Veggie Tale movie out there, you should check it out. OH! I almost forgot that it's also got the BEST silly song ever on homophones. It's silly AND educational. The best combo.

Towards the end of the movie, when they come to the memory verse part, the computer broke because one of them tried to "fix it". This made me laugh because recently my computer broke and because we've been so busy, someone *cough* has been too busy to fix it. :) But that's okay... we got an Ipad 2 to take with us to show people MAF videos and pictures, so it's all good.

Because the computer was broken, the little guy had to write a verse out from memory. It was Hebrews 10:36, "You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised."

That was the exact verse we needed to hear today. A reminder that often the things that are of God aren't easy. There's no yellow brick road to make it easy, but we need to persevere through slow times when the task seems insurmountable so that we will accomplish and learn what God has for us. God has a plan and we just need to be faithful and listen to His leading. I know today I will be listening a little harder and trying even more harder to accomplish what God has for me to do today.


Friday, October 14, 2011

Back Again...

We are back here on good ole' blogger again for the time being. Yes, we love the fancy Wordpress site, but we just realized that we could do a lot of what thought we could only do on Wordpress, right here on this blog! Amazing. So for right now, we aren't switching sites and are staying put!

In other news, we had a wonderful time on our first trip to Washington State. We got to visit some wonderful friends and family and look forward to going back up there in a week or so. This was the first time Jenna had met many of our friends. It was fun to see her interact with our friends and the children that she met. She's a born traveler.

Right now we're back in Oregon and gearing up for our next trip to Washington. We are also resting a little bit. Jennavieve is teething and getting in her one year molars. She also has a slight cold and has been waking up A LOT at night. So prayers for her health are much appreciated.

We hope to update this website much more often. In the beginning of November be looking in your inboxes and mailboxes for our new newsletter! In it we'll let you know where we're at in the process and how you can help! If you are interested in joining us in ministry, we'd love to have you! Check out the pages above to see just how you'd like to partner with us in ministry.

Blessings,
The Reeds

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Virginia

Virginia (posted by Kristine)

So our trip to Washington started off with no sleep, or at least just three hours of sleep. I had worked hard the night before to try to get things ready for our week-long trip to Washington and was exhausted by the time I got to bed. Not more than an hour later Jennaveive decided she would scream and scream (Which isn’t normal) and so I got up and tried to calm her down. Unfortunately there was no calming her, so I took her to bed with us. Yeah…not such a good idea either. While I was able to get her to sleep, she was inching me out of my side of the bed and hitting Eric with her arms and legs. I tried to cope with this and just sleep, but no sleep happened for I think another hour or so. Then I finally gave up and took her back to her room where she fell asleep after a little coaxing.

I get to sleep and before I know it, we’re awake. The alarm didn’t go off, but we woke up anyhow. We packed and sorted and tried to organize the best we could and the house still wasn’t where I wanted it to be but I kinda gave up and said,”This is life!” (Or something like that.) We are blessed to have people watching it while we are away and good neighbors who keep an eye on things. The cat is being fed by Eric’s mom, who was very gracious in doing so. (Speaking of cat….if anyone wants one…please please please take him! He’s free and becoming a burden when we go on these long trips and have to always have someone take care of him. Talk to your friends, neighbors, old folks centers…etc. We definitely need YOUR help to get him a home.)

On the road I’d realized that in all the shuffle, I’d forgotten to eat. So we decided to stop at Denny’s in Kelso. Before we entered Denny’s I looked at Jenna’s hair and noticed that it was getting a little mangy, so I took out a baby band to pull it into a top ponytail. (You know, those classy baby ponytails on the top of their head…) When I pulled her hair back I saw brownish yellowish patches on her head! Yikes! They were the same tone as my freckles, so at first I thought,”Woah Weird, this baby is getting freckles on her head!” Eric thought it looked like she had gotten food up there. So we agreed that we might wash her hair in Denny’s to see, but we still weren’t sure if we’d do that or wait until we got to my parent’s house.

During Dinner Jenna got food all over her hair. So that solved our question of whether we should wash her hair. I got the baby shampoo, a new dress and hauled her off to the bathroom. When I got there I started talking to Jenna about how I was feeling like a homeless mom right now, or at least one that lived out of her car that needs to use the diner’s sink to wash her baby. I didn’t notice that there was someone occupying a stall behind me. As I soaked Jenna’s hair with water and lathered it up with soap, the lady came out of the stall.

“Hello! I am not walking too well these days, I have bandages on both legs!” she said. “Well you are doing great and moving around for having those bandages, that’s a good thing!” I replied trying to move along the conversation. “I’m 92 years old and still moving around! Oh my that baby is cute, her hair is all wet. Mom you should wipe her tear (it was a drop of water)” she told me. So I wiped Jenna’s face and explained to the lady that I was attempting to wash Jenna’s hair. The lady still didn’t quite understand me and after she washed her hands she told me to wipe the baby’s face off. Which made sense, because by that time some of the “no tear” shampoo was getting into Jenna’s eyes. I did and explained again that I was washing Jenna’s hair because she got food in it and proceeded to rinse Jenna’s hair off in the sink. The lady decided that she was going to “help” me by giving me a ton of paper towels. “Here, take these to dry her hair, she needs these. I’m not infectious, that’s not why I have bandages on my legs.” So I took them and used them on Jenna’s hair, even though I had just planned on using her old dress because I had changed her clothes. Then the lady, the one who has two bandaged legs and could barely walk, took some paper towels, put them on the floor and proceeded to wipe up the floor with her legs. ”I can do that, don’t worry about it,” I told her. She insisted on helping so I took some paper towels and began wiping up the floor with my hands. No! You need to use your feet. Then after you do that you need to get a new paper towel for your hand and grab the paper towels on the floor,” she insisted.So what was I to do? This lady is um several years my senior and kept reminding me of how old she was practically every minute. (No I mean literally. She said, “Well I am 92….etc before every other sentence”) So I did what I was told while trying to wrangle Jenna to keep her off the floor. “Now you need to wash your hands,” she said. So I washed my hands and when I went to go out, the lady (you know the one with the bandaged legs) held the door for me. So I went out quickly and held the door for her.

While out I thanked her for helping me and she commented on how pretty Jenna was. We talked for a few minutes and I asked her what her name was,”Virginia, and I’m 92 years old” she said. She told me that she was in no pain from her legs, and I told her that was good. I walked with her to her table so her husband would understand what took her so long and I thanked her in front of him for helping me. :) Then we went to our table, paid the check and went off to Washington.

It’s amazing the people you find in the strangest of places. For some reason Virginia really really felt like I needed help. I think she was right. She was very selfless and even though she was having difficulty walking, she took the time out to help someone she thought was in need. May we all be like Virginia and seeking opportunities to help others no matter how we are feeling that day. It’s definitely something to think about and put into practice. :)

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Workin’ on the Ole’ Homestead..


Lately we’ve been hard at work on the ole’ homestead organizing, painting and putting up molding. (Not all in that order) Up above you can see wood that we’ve purchased to make a fence on the side of our house. If you look really closely to where Eric is pointing, you will see a praying mantis. Yep, I had no clue they were here in Oregon, but they are. We’ve found two so far. Some people would be grossed out by this large bug, I kinda find it intriguing. Maybe this is a good sign for when we are living in Indonesia and surrounded by large insects. Time will tell. We hope to be able to put the house finally on the market sometime early spring if not sooner. There’s much to be done and it gets complicated doing it with a young little lady in the house that wants us to play all day. By the grace of God we will get it done!

It’s exciting to think that in a couple of years we’ll be living in Indonesia. This is a culture very different from our own and definitely in a climate different than our own. We’ve been told it’s quite hot and humid there. An upside to hot and humid means that I’ll get to wear more dresses and capris daily. A definite plus in my book. I’ll blog more on that later. Right now the little lady is up from her nap and demanding attention. :)