1987 Out of Africa

Reading a devotional on the times of Christians during Idi Amin caused me to reflect on my mission trip to Uganda. Motivation to go? God stirring my heart, husbands encouragement and support from friends and family. 500,000 people were killed as Amin began a war against the Christians.

Vivid sights: beggars in markets, cripples crawling in the dust using flip-flops on the hands to move along, orphans, checkpoints with soldiers, 4 month old twins the size of newborns. Dust. Children in rags, stores with just a few items. The picture above? yeah, skulls with bullet holes including skulls of children. Many memorials observed like this around the villages. Can you imagine?

 Food: cooked bananas, maize and pineapple, sugar cane.

smells: latrines, smoke in the air and the taste of smoke in the water.

different: no running water, some nights no electricity. Nurses make $10 a month.

Our work was immunizing children. Frustrations: using same syringe and just changing needle, running out of gas so no work, conflict with Africans way of doing things.  Hard part was inflicting pain on the little ones with the needle. One day after completion we reloaded the syringes with water and sprayed the children.  We passed out stickers and balloons. Let the children smile.

One memory lingers all these decades later. 20 children in a circle listening to me tell them a Bible story (memory foggy here but probably David) with Thomas giving translation. Thomas completed the time with prayer and telling me all the children wanted Jesus in their heart.

Danger: taking a walk and 2 soldiers stopped to talk to us and pulled out a grenade. Despite the language barrier knew something was off with these guys and happy to move past them.

One work day required a 2 hour drive and then a trip in an ancient wooden boat to cross the swamp. Oh yes, someone had to paddle but everyone had to keep bailing the water out because the boats leaked. After a 4 mile hike arrived. After immunizing the children had a feast of ma-toke and fresh fish from Victoria Lake.

Outcome: definitely received more then we gave. Out team immunized 4,500 children. Obedience. God is in Africa. God loves children!

God suffers with his little children.

Father, we pray for our hearts to be open to what you are doing.

End of 2014

Reviewing the past year for ourselves and those who peek at this blog will show that the season of grandchildren and watching our children in family settings is our biggest blessing and gift. We welcomed Oliver into the Krause clan.

Our next favorite blessing and gift is our mobility and joy in all things outdoors from biking to hiking. Yes, we are still geocaching and this adds smiles to our miles. We are still working and no photos of that. We joined a group of people starting a new church and enjoy the setting with smaller amounts of people. We continue to host our small group for spiritual refreshment ( not small really- if everyone comes we have 12 adults and 12 children. ) Full house! More stories to come in 2015.

Kearsarge Pass July 2014

Our 4 day trek into the wilderness took us over 2 passes of near 12,000 feet in elevation. Our lakeside accomendations created a space for us to to gaze at fish jumping, moon rising and slowing down the pace of life. No, the trip was not all perfect for us. We experienced wipe-out with altitude sickness,exhaustion, rain and ankle injury. However for us a few days to ourself with no agenda except to put 1 foot in front of the other and soak in the beauty of the landscape left us in awe and refreshed. During the 35 mile trip and extimated 5,000 feet of climbing we wondered if this was to be the last trip for us as our aging bodies complained just a bit. However the benefits outway the discomforts and we are already thinking about next year's adventure.

Joshua Tree April 2014

Free picture slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Goody Bye 2013

Here comes 2014 but not before we share our star events for the past year.

The Krause Klan welcomes grandsons Ellison and Aidan!

 Sianna and Annabelle love to go to church with us and drink lemonade.

Our favorite outdoor wilderness experiences occurred backpacking Bear-paw meadow and chocolate lake.

Family life changed as we welcome grandchildren into our weekly routine so our children can go about work and school.  Every time this family gets together its celebration time.

For Tim, hiccoughs, back lurches, sideways steps required determination to keep the business floating and forwarding. For Char a few of the weekly hours where spent in new computer program learning and teaching while managing all the normal emergency department challenges.

Our greatest discovery is deciding we are both a little crazy to equally enjoy the activity of geocaching.  While many family members and friends have joined us on these mini-adventures, they have not caught the bug as we have. We take delight in hunting, discovering, grabbing these little treasures. We have hid 2 ourselves and launched some travel bugs as well. So if we are hiking or biking or camping or backpacking or shopping, we do pull out our GPS and add to the adventure.

We are pretty sure this has created the foundation for the next stage of our journey as we translate our experience of seeking man made treasures to seeking God's treasures.  So we are on the look out this new year to discover 1,000 gifts and develop a grateful heart. Join us! Download the app here:
http://onethousandgifts.com/get-the-app

(big thanks to Cathy, Val, Cheryl and Lyn as we shared a table at a wedding reception and shared what God is doing in our lives)

OK...you can see us in action here!

This picture slideshow made with Smilebox

NOV 2013

One more thing off the life bucket list. Jerrol took me to his shooting range to experience firing a weapon. The safety instructor asked each student our purpose in learning to fire a gun. While I admitted my fear in holding one (flash-patients with bullet wounds), I admitted my curiosity at my son's interest in this sport. So soon I was down taking aim at the target. A few days later while looking at my target and noticing just a few bullet holes in the center of the target, I realized God wanted to give me a teaching lesson. I have often heard that sin is best described as 'missing the mark'. Now as I observed my skill (or lack of it),  I had a few shots in the right place, but I wasn't good enough consistently and everytime.  So my evidence of making the grade before God was clear. So grateful that God looks at His Son's perfection and not mine.