North Carolina is no longer home.  It is a place of much fun, where I can be my old self.  There's just something about flying down I-40 that seems to resonate with my inner sense of freedom and the ability to delight therein.  On the other hand, North Carolina still has all of the tensions and restrictions I remember, only now instead of being forced, I am simply pressured by them.  There is always the pull in every direction at once to be everywhere at once.  I miss having no obligations besides those to my husband and baby.  Yet it is also so much less fulfilling to have only those two to look after.  I love being busy, but often I take on more than I can handle and end up exhausted and irritated at the end of the day.  Thankfully, I have a husband that sees when I get that way and takes measures to take things off me and force me to relax.  Yesterday, I rose at 6:30 am, after having fallen asleep past midnight.  I boldly decided to take my little baby and a little dog I am dogsitting to my mother's house for the day.  I had to make 4 trips out to the car.  One with baby's things, one with doggie's things, one with baby, and one with doggie.  Then, I had to pray they'd both behave on the 20 minute ride.  Thankfully, joyfully, and blissfully, they did.  Time at my mom's house was a fun time visiting, going for a walk, feeding baby, etc.  I decided to get some groceries while I had a baby sitter, so Anna went with me and endured my ADD-ness, as she called it after the 14th time of me responding to her stories about school with a completely irrelevant comment in regards to which meat to get or what kind of Gatorade she thought Jamin would like.  I call it rudeness, but I truly can't do a good job shopping if my brain is freezing from overload of multi-tasks.  Got back to the house, where Esther was ravenous, so I fed her and did have a good chance to actually listen to Anna.  After that, I tried to whip up supper half-way (and Mom helped me out--so sweet).  Packed everything hurriedly back in the car and tried to beat traffic back to the house we're house-sitting for the week.  Jamin called on the way home because he was driving home from work at the same time.  I beat him home, so I unloaded all the groceries, the baby stuff, the dog stuff, the dog, and the baby--all while the baby screamed.  I laid the baby down and hoped she'd cry herself to sleep.  Then put some groceries away, then started on the rest of supper, where everything took a maddeningly 10 times longer because I couldn't find this or that in this humongous kitchen.  Esther kept screaming, so while something was slowly frying, I took a break to feed her.  I tried to keep feeding her as I cooked and only succeeded in overcooking the chicken, breaking a glass carafe that doesn't belong to me, a tea bag splitting in the iced tea so the tea floated in it, and crescent rolls that were warm and "melted" when I popped the can, so they were impossibly sticky and gooey and hard to pull apart and roll up.  Thankfully, Jamin got home and helped with the tea and the baby and the potatoes.  He got to enjoy the pool while I fed the baby and got bug bitten.  After she ate, Jamin put her down to cry herself to sleep again, and we proceeded to enjoy the rest of our evening together, despite everything.  The pool was very cool by this time, but it was still refreshing.  About 10:30, we enjoyed dessert of strawberries and ice cream and chocolate sauce, and I realized I still hadn't heard about Jamin's day.  So he told me, and I fell asleep, listening to the sound of his warm, mellow voice.  He sweetly took the dishes back to the kitchen, and I slept in my clothes all night.  Now I have a fussy baby (she's sick, poor dear), a messy kitchen, a needy dog, and a parched garden to take care of, not to mention the possibility of my family coming over for a 3rd of July party.  I'm looking forward to Jamin getting home and to being away from here tomorrow with plenty of people to hold little snuffly girl.

This weekend will be crazy.  We're at this house through Friday, so that means Fri will be a lot of cleaning and packing up, laundry, dishes, etc.  Friday, say goodbye to Janna and Nate.  Spend Fri night through Sunday with my family and Mike and Jonathan.  Sunday night, drive down to the beach for a few days.  It's a bit overwhelming, but I'm sure it will include lots of memories that could not otherwise have been made.

Well, hello, everyone.    I really have been posting lately...it's just been all on my husband's and my joint site. 

Today is a beautiful sunny day, and that gives me lots of energy, except eating seems to take all that energy away from me in order to digest and feed my baby.  Ah well, I'm sure that this is the least amount of energy my child will ever take from me, so perhaps I should enjoy it while I can.

Last week was mission emphasis week at LeTourneau, which in addition to providing plenty of extra chapel opportunities, it also offered many interesting evening sessions that Jamin and I could attend together.  The first night was a convicting message by an Indian professor from Dallas Theological Seminary.  He challenged us to not limit God's power by living as if He can't use us, and then become useless to the Master after He does use us, and we claim all the credit.

The second night, we went to an ice cream social hosted by several representatives of various mission aviation ministries.  We learned a lot about the needs they have, and I got more of a vision of the life of mission pilot.  Another night, we went to a seminar on short take off and landing strips, which was somewhat technical and boring (for me, not for Jamin, of course), but we got to see some cool video footage from MAF strips in Africa, South America and Asia. 

On Saturday, for some reason, Jamin and I started talking at the breakfast table about our dreams for our future in a foreign land where there is so much need for even such simple things as drinkable water, basic education, housing, and of course, the gospel.  I was reminded of my highschool dream to go to a place like India where there are so many children and young people simply living off the streets and whatever they can scrounge.  I would love to give them the practical things they need to get off the street and have a proper job, along with that giving them a solid basic education, and a good work ethic that comes from knowing the Lord and wanting to please Him in everything that we do.  Perhaps it is a lofty ideal, and the Lord does not always use us in the way that we expect Him to, but for now, my burden lies there. 

The message that has impacted me this week is that God is in the business of using ordinary people for His greatest works.  One day this week, we ran into a man who designed Angel aircraft almost single-handedly and is in the process of designing another airplane for mission use, as well as a much more economic diesel engine to replace current av-gas burning engines.  He told us pretty much his life story, and it's a miracle that the Lord completely orchestrated his life, step by step, leading him into aircraft rebuilding and design.  And he's not even an engineer--he's just an ordinary pilot/mechanic.  He encouraged us to be ready to be used in whatever way the Lord sees fit, and to remember that He is not an unreasonable master: He won't give us a task and then make us hate it, but that rather He gives us the desires and also the opportunities.

In response to my renewed interest in India and orphanages, I went to the campus library on Saturday and picked up some books by Amy Carmichael.  They are fascinating, and already, I wish I could be more like her and the ladies she worked with in total self-denial and devotion to Christ.  I know the Lord works with us gradually, but I know that I could be so much farther ahead in my walk with Him if I didn't get so distracted by mundane routines and bogged down by them.  I want to learn how to focus on what really counts in life, the brevity of life, and therefore the importance of making each moment count.  I want to learn joy that is perpetual because it is not based whatsoever in circumstances.  That kind of poise and steadfastness is what I long for.  It would be nice to be able to be trusted with the hardest tasks, and to always have an appropriate word for those who seek it, from God, as it were.  That kind of solidness cannot come from oneself.  In Christ alone. . .