Blazing A New Trail

I am super excited to add another type of exercise/fitness to my list. It makes life more interesting and "working out" more fun. In March we bought mountain bikes. We took them on our vacation over spring break and actually got to ride them for a short time, maybe 45 minutes, at this really big park in Memphis, TN. We didn't time it or the distance then. We didn't ride longer than that because we had spent the morning at the Memphis Zoo, which is quite large. 

Today we took our bikes out to ride a trail John found. You ride to the end of the trail then turn around and ride back, for a total of 11.7 miles. We stopped for a few minutes here and there but for the most part we rode straight through. JC was the first one back to the Jeep. We reached the Jeep after about one hour and 45 minutes. I actually came in second because John stayed behind with Jenni on the return ride. She and I were in the back on the way there, laughing and having a great time. She had a hard time on the way back because it got harder. I found there was more uphill parts on the way back, almost the whole way. I struggled a bit but pushed myself as hard as I could. I wanted to make sure I made it to the stopping point before my phone died since I was tracking the miles and using it for music. 

The weather was perfect, sunny and a cool breeze. It is my hope that we can do this often, maybe even every Saturday. Next Saturday we have a 5K to run. I am not sure how easy going the kids will be about it but I hope they will be willing to go with us every time, or most of the time. I hope we can find new trails to ride on to keep it interesting. 

I have been doing the Squat Challenge, the Plank Challenge and added a Crunch Challenge to it. I have done the workout video once, but plan on doing it more next week. I didn't run this week at all. I will have to get out there and run this week twice before our 5K on Saturday. Working on my diet, too. I need to get all the junk out of the house FAST! I ordered more drinks so I can do another cleanse. I think I will do that after I get back from Children's Camp because that is always a hard week when it comes to food and exercise. 

If you are unsure of what to do as far as getting your body moving so you can be healthier, just move. Go for a walk daily, do the Couch to 5K training, get on a bike and go for a ride, do one of the challenges. Just DO something, anything. And the more days you do something the more you will enjoy doing it. I love being an active person now. As I get closer to turning 50 years old the more I understand the need for my health to be as good as I can get it. I need to be active and I need to get my eating habits in line with how God intended me to eat. When I do, I feel amazing. But I know I can't go over board. I have to make sure I am not doing too much. It isn't about pushing yourself OVER the limit. It is about pushing yourself to the limit you are supposed to reach. If you push past that you can injure yourself and that stops your progress altogether. So take it slow and listen to your body. The better you eat, the better you will feel and the more you can do in time. 

Changing my life one day at a time. 

Color Run Dallas 2013

On Saturday, April 6, 2013 I ran my second 5K. It was called The Color Run. What a blast I had.  Part of the reason I had so much fun was that my oldest daughter ran with me. It is always fun to do things with other people who are excited about it as you are. My last 5K was in early February so I had two whole months between races. I have to admit I didn't run as consistently as I should have. I ran 15 times between races. That is about half of what I should have done, in my opinion. I am glad I ran what I did. I tend to run more as a race approaches. The week before the race I could feel the excitement building. The night before was typical of my first race, I slept little. I got up in a good frame of mind and got ready for the race. My daughter and I had some fun things to wear for our run, a bandanna, sun glasses and tattoo on our cheek. We left pretty early after the traffic we experienced in February. But there wasn't any traffic that day. I think we just beat it because shortly after we parked the line of cars started piling into the lot. 

We found out that they had a before party going with music and dancing. We joined right in. It was so much fun. Since we got there at 7 we had awhile before the race began to warm up. We got in the big start area around 7:45. The excitement was building again as we waited our turn to start running. My *pandora wasn't working so I didn't have any music to listen to except at certain spots where they had their music playing loudly. I didn't let that stop me. I listened to the conversations of the walkers and just kept moving forward. The first mile seemed to pass very quickly. They didn't have any color stops during that one. Right after that they had one set up. You have to slow down and/or stop to get color thrown on you. My time for the first mile was really the only accurate time I have, which was 12.40. There were so many people is wasn't always easy to run around someone in my path. And there were a ton of walkers not always staying on the right side of the path so that the runners could run on the left.

At the end of the race they gathered as a group in front of the stage (the one we had the before party) and every so often they did a color throw. We stayed in that area through about 5 throws so that we had plenty of color on us. We took lots of fun photos. 

One of the things I am going to do with my race memorabilia is make a running scrapbook. I'm super excited about that. I can't wait to fill it up with things for the different races I am planning on doing. 

My next 5K is May 11. We are running to support the purchase of Bibles for the group, Equip Disciples, that we went to Kenya with the summer of 2011. All of us are doing the 5K for this. I have a couple planned for summer, one in the fall and then at least one at the beginning of the new year. I am only signed up for the one next month and the Hot Chocolate in February so far. But there are deadlines for some that I want to do so I might go ahead and sign up pretty quickly.

That is the update on the latest race. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. There are more in my fb page if you are my "friend" on there. 

Changing my life one day at a time. 

Our Mission Story

My husband and I have been serving the Lord together since before we got married. We worked with the other youth in our small town church by putting on puppet shows and helping with Vacation Bible School. Over the course of our marriage our ministries have taken on many new aspects. We worked in the children's department of our church for many years together while also serving in other areas separately. For the past 14 years we have worked with Mission Arlington in apartment ministries. We pastor an apartment church that met on Sunday mornings at 11 a.m. for many years. 

In 2009 we participated in a study called Perspectives On The World Christian Movement at our church. It was during those four months that we began to feel the call to cross cultural work beyond our city. We had been working cross culturally for the past 8 years. But we understood that the "fields are white unto harvest but the workers are few" so we took the next step in that commitment.

In 2010-2011 we began another type of cross cultural training that took a year to complete. Our Panorama group met each Thursday night and we studied many different aspects of living and working cross culturally. We completed this training in August of 2011.

We began to look for areas of ministry that we could serve and something that came up for my husband was low cost water well drilling. He grew up in the oil field and it just seemed to call to him. The ministry that he found is Water for All International. He began talking to these gentlemen and learning the process by watching videos online and actually going out in a local area and doing some test wells. In March of 2011 we went to West Texas to train for a week with the WFA leaders and 5 others from all over the globe that came to get this wonderful training.

After our return home we were approached by a member of our church. They had heard about our training in the low cost water well drilling and wanted us to be a part of their group that went to East Africa in June of 2011. We were able to go for the three weeks in June, along with our two youngest children. We were blessed beyond measure.

When we returned the doors closed for us in all of these areas. We were unsure why but knew God must have a plan. We continued to work with our apartment church. We were moved to another apartment that had a larger ministry in 2012. During the summer of 2012 a church building was given to Mission Arlington and they moved our congregation into it. We not only meet on Sunday mornings, we now meet on Wednesday nights. John started an ESL class on Monday nights since the congregations only speaks Spanish and they have a desire to learn English.

We will continue to serve where we are planted and will try to share with you about the things going on at Fuller Street. If you even want to help our ministry you can always donate to Mission Arlington and address it for Fuller Street Ministry. I am sure they will get it into the correct hands to help our congregation.

We appreciate all of your prayer support. Keep them coming!

Until next time...blessings to you.

What is my Legacy?

As I was running today the word legacy came to my mind. That may sound really strange but it makes perfect sense to me. I was watching my husband and two younger children running/walking the track while I ran. My children are training to run a 5K. As I ran and pondered that word I decided to look into it a little deeper. 

Legacy: anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor. 

As a mom, I am concerned about the legacy I leave for my children. But I started to think about what type of legacy I received from my ancestors. The most significant legacy that comes to mind all comes from my grandmother. She gave me so much of herself that I am proud of and gladly carry forward to my children.

The most important thing she gave me is my faith in Christ. She was the daughter of a Baptist pastor and the granddaughter of a missionary. She made sure I was in church three days a week and for all the extra activities in the children's department. It went much farther than that. Some of my bed time stories were from the Bible. My favorite as a child was Samson. She led by example and practiced what she preached. She wasn't perfect by any means but my grandmother always tried to live the way Christ taught. As I watched her as a leader in the church, head of the WMU and the like, I also saw her compassion for those who had less than we did and her desire to share the Word with them because she knew what truly would enrich their lives. I am unsure what type of family my grandfather came from but I think my grandmother had a stronger faith than they did, if any. She was the driving force behind her husband and children attending church. 

Grandma gave me a sense of great love and support towards my children and others. She was my champion! If ever she felt I had been wronged before I was old enough to take care of it myself, she was there fixing it. After I was older she was there to encourage me in how to handle things the right way. She was a listening ear to my every life detail. Oh, how I miss those days. She shared my joys and my sorrows. She didn't focus on her sorrows, although she had plenty of her own through her long life. She taught me not to dwell on mine, either. She would tell me about things but only when we were having long deep conversations about the past as a way for her to tell me "her story". 

I grew up in a home that was totally southern, fried just about everything! When I was a young teenager my grandmother decided that being healthier was important. At the time I called her a "health food nut". (Sorry, Gram!) She started cooking with healthier things and not frying so much. She also started exercises more. She already played golf almost everyday. The "in thing" was a fitness center. So she and I went and worked out together. 

Now me. Am I leaving behind a legacy for my children to carry on to theirs and beyond? I know that I am doing what I can with my children. But children don't always go down the path you wish they would or believe and live the things they have been taught. At least not right away. I make sure my children attend church and know their Bible. They do all the extra fun activities at church. We even went a step farther, kind of along the lines of my great-great grandmother, we teach at a mission church and have for the past 15 years. Our children are a part of that ministry. We have even taken the two youngest on a mission trip to Africa! We live out our faith daily. Even through hard times we look to the Lord. That isn't to say we never have times of doubt and discouragement. But we do our best not to stay in those depths too long. We know that isn't where Christ wants us to live. 

I married a man who did not come from a Christian background. He started coming to church when we started dating. As young parents I felt the need to make sure that our daughter was in church so we started going. After we had our second child and had been married for 9 years I realized something was missing. I wanted a way to be closer to my husband and I thought if we did a Bible study together that we would grow closer. I was still under the impression that my husband had a personal relationship with Christ. But he didn't. About a year after we started doing a Bible study called Precept (there are different topics under that heading) he accepted Christ as his Savior. As part of his testimony he tells people that I was the one who insisted we go to church. I suppose I carried out my grandmother's legacy in that area for sure. 

Several years ago I read a book called The Maker's Diet. I learned so much about the things in this world that are bad for you and the things that are good for you. At first I tried to do a complete change and met some resistance but not as much as you would think. As the years have progressed we have made real changes to our diet. We still have some things we need to work on but I feel good about a lot of them. 

My husband has always been great about working out and staying in shape. I on the other hand have gone up and down on the scales. I can attribute some of that to being pregnant seven times with four full term births. (I only have four living children) I have been sporadic in my workouts. I tend to lack consistency for large periods of time. I will work out for several months and then nothing for a very long time, sometimes years. A year ago in November I reached my highest non-pregnancy weight and it was like a RED LIGHT shinning in my face. STOP NOW! So I decided to make some real changes in my exercise and hopefully my eating habits. I started doing some workout videos again and did those for about eleven weeks and stopped again. I had lost 10 pounds at that point but let life get in my way. Plus, I admit I was discouraged that the weight wasn't coming off faster.  In June several things changed. I got back on Weight Watchers and signed up to run a 5K in February. The WW I had done before. But running? NOPE! I did the training on the treadmill for nine weeks. Then I needed to take it outside. My husband was going walking in the mornings before the preschoolers got there so I asked him if I could run while he walked because running in the park alone was not a good idea for me. He started running a mile or two here and there and then walking a lot of it. Pretty soon he was running the three miles and really enjoying himself. I haven't gotten him to sign up for a race yet but I'm working on it. 

My oldest daughter was the one who told me how much she loved to run. She had gotten so busy with work and hadn't run in a long time. She is struggling to gain a healthier lifestyle so running hasn't been something she thought she could do. I took up running because she told me how good it was and because I wanted something we could do together, have in common. She has started training for a 5K in April that we will run together! I am super excited about that. It will take some time to work up to it but I know that it is going to have a life changing effect on her. She will be able to do something she loves again. My younger two children are now doing the Couch to 5K training. I know I want all of them to sign up for next years Hot Chocolate 5K in February (I want to make that a yearly family thing). But I'm not sure if the kids or my husband will run with me any other time before then. I sure hope so. 

So my legacy...am I carrying it forward? I have to believe that I am. In a good way. I saw an example in my grandmother and have tried to live that example for my family, sometimes without even realizing it. I thought a lot about it while I was watching my family run this evening at the park. I do a lot of thinking and talking to the Lord during my runs. He gives me insight on many things and clears my head of things that don't need to be there. 

I'm not perfect and would never pretend to be. I am a work in progress. But like my grandmother, I get back up when I fall down and keep on heading the direction the Lord is guiding me. It is really the only thing I can do. I will never stop growing and learning as long as I am on this earth. So I will keep my eyes on the Lord so that my children will see my example. I am prayerful that they will gain the legacy that I am trying to pass on to them. 

Thanks for letting me share. What are your legacy's? The ones you received and the ones you are passing on? 

Until next time...blessings to you.

My Love/Hate Relationship...With Running

Yes, you read that correctly. I have a love/hate relationship with running. What do I mean by that? Let me explain...

I LOVE the feeling I get AFTER I run. I feel invigorated, empowered, energized, and accomplished. I feel all of those things when I am nearing the last half of my third mile. It is what pushes me forward and helps me make it the last little bit with a little more speed than I had before. 

I HATE how hard it is to get myself out the door. I have to find the time to go running because it has to be when my husband is watching our daycare kids. It has to be a time when none of the parents that have to sign in and out of my phone will be arriving. It has to be good weather since the extreme cold makes it hard for me to breathe. Through all of that I have to MAKE myself do it because things come up, I get tired after a long day working with the kids, not feeling well because of sickness that the kids bring in, etc...I can always come up with excuses NOT to workout. 

I LOVE the results I get from running. Since I started running last June I have seen real change in my body. Not so much on the scale but in my clothes and in my face. Running helps my body be regular. I know that may sound gross to some, but that is just how it is. When I am NOT running I am more likely to be irregular. And I feel that being regular helps get the weight off instead of it staying on my body. I have a little ways to go when it comes to the size clothes I want to wear but at the same time, I feel wonderful about the clothes I am wearing. I went from a size 14 jeans and XL or L shirts to size 10 jeans and M tops and dresses. That is a BIG difference. And my face looks a lot different than it did just a year ago. 

I HATE how I have to fight my thoughts as I am running so that I keep on running instead of quitting. When I start out running I have to tell myself over and over again "I love running" and "I can do this". Because if I let my mind go elsewhere it will tell me "Maybe you can only make it one mile today" or "This is just too hard. You have eaten terrible this week so you just don't have it in you to make it three whole miles." But if I keep my thoughts held captive I can run my three miles and feel awesome afterwards. 

I LOVE how running releases all sorts of stresses and frustrations. Everyone's life has stress in it. Mine is no exception. Running helps those things seem a little less major than they did before my run. It is hard to be stressed or mad after a great run. It puts things into perspective. Plus, when I run I listen to praise and worship music. I spend time talking to the Lord through the songs I am listening to. That helps make all the stress and other mess go away. 

Do you see what I mean about love/hate? I often wonder if other runners feel that way, too. Do you? Despite the fact that I love AND hate running, I will keep running as long as I am able. My reasons are all the things I LOVE about running. They far outweigh the things I HATE.  

Changing my life one day at a time. 

Hot Chocolate 5K 2013 - My First 5K

Today was a HUGE milestone for me. Not because I haven't run 3.1 miles before but because I have never run in a race before willingly. I have mentioned getting out of P.E. in school because I didn't want to run laps. That was me thirty years ago. Last year at this time I wasn't even considering running. I was just trying to get up and do a 20 minute workout video three times a week to get the weight off.  I wanted to blog about today while it was still fresh in my mind because of the feelings I experienced.

I had a really hard time sleeping last night. I suppose the excitement was just too much. I set my alarm for 5:30 because I didn't think I could get myself up any earlier but I was out of bed by 5:15. I knew I would not eat or drink anything before the race so I didn't have to worry about time for those things. The race officials suggested we arrive by 6. We should have left at 5:30 but it was hard getting my son out of bed that early since he likes to stay up late. Note for next year and other races: leave earlier. We were right before the exit when traffic came to a stand still. We reached that point around 6:15. Traffic was only moving a short distance at a time. When we finally got up to our exit the police had blocked it off. We headed to the next one but it was blocked off, too. Before we got to an exit that was open we came close, and I mean CLOSE to hitting a car in front of us. John was able to swerve and miss it by a hair. It scared me so badly because it's truly a miracle that we didn't crash our new Jeep and miss the race completely. We didn't get into the parking lot until 7:15 and then we had to walk what seemed like an entire mile to get where we gathered for the race. The race was supposed to start at 7:30 but I think they understood how backed up the traffic was and gave us a few minutes longer. They did allow late arrives to get in the last heap of runners.

Once I was surrounded by all the other runners the excitement started coming back. (The near death experience kind of put a damper on things.) It was pretty cold but I knew I wouldn't be comfortable wearing the hoodie that they gave us. I made sure my ears were covered up so they wouldn't hurt. I warmed up pretty quickly once I was running. I was actually comfortable once I was in the corral. Once again, I think that was due to the excitement. I was in the next to last group to run so I stood and talked to a few ladies while we were waiting. That is always fun for me. I love getting to meet new people.

When we reached the start line and begin to run I was excited but trying not to run over people or get run over myself. I was in a group with a lot of walkers even though it said no walkers. I didn't feel strange about going around people and even getting on the curb to go around like I saw other people doing. I had to do that often. I thought I might have to stop often to get a drink or walk but after I had run the first mile and found out I did it in 12 minutes (over a minute faster than I had been running) that pushed me forward to keep going without quitting. The more I ran the more I wanted to run. There was an up hill overpass that was challenging but instead of getting slower I pushed myself to go faster up that hill. I did slow to a walk two or three times for only about five seconds to take a drink but never considered walking any part of the race.

When I finally went under the finish line I had a huge smile on my face. I was looking for my husband and son but they were farther up waiting for me. I saw them before they saw me. They were such great sports because they were freezing cold while I had been running and didn't feel the cold anymore. That is why they are going to run WITH me next year instead of standing on the sidelines. 

After the race they gave out mugs with hot cocoa and fondue. The chocolate was wonderful! I made a big mess with it but it was scrumptious anyway. I think that was one of the neatest parts of this race, the free hoodie and the chocolate afterwards. It was a fun race.

Now I am looking into running my next race. I am actually trying to plan my runs for the whole year. I know that I have to make a plan or I will be tempted to quit. But I can SEE the changes in myself and my body in the last year. And I am excited to see what I can do this year and what changes I will have made. Looking back gives a person perspective and vision for the future. If I can train and over come asthma related issues that have kept me from running in the past then I can keep training and make some longer strides towards bigger goals. My next goal really is just to keep improving my time in the 5K. I am not sure I will want to run the 15K in this race next year but who knows. Maybe by 2015 a 15K will be something I will be ready for. One thing I want to make sure of is that every race I run has either a fun theme like this one or is a good cause. I don't want to just run a race to run it. I want the race to mean something to me.

My Time

37 min 34 sec

Pace	Overall	Age Group	Sex
12 min 06 sec	3285	184 of 429	2317 of 4732

I can't wait for the next adventure in a healthy lifestyle. Share with me your adventures on the road to health. 

Changing my life, one day at a time. 

A Look Back At Some Questions

I intended to blog about a different subject today but that is going to have to take a back seat to another post that came to mind as I look at what I blogged about last year, which wasn't much. I found very little time to blog on any of my blogs last year and I feel terrible about that. Those blogs are all important to me. For 2013 I intend to make an effort to blog at least once a month on each blog. We will see how that goes.

On January 26 of last year I wrote a blog post titled Questions, Questions, So Many Questions. I had some pretty hard questions and I desired answers so badly. And while at the time of that post I didn't have any answers, I did have a Savior who's arms I ran into and felt safe and sure that HE knew all the answers and would show them to me in His time. I am so thankful for that. 

As I read back over the post I remember the anxiety I felt at first when I was writing it but then I also remember the calm that washed over me as I heard His voice whisper to me: 

"Be still and know that I AM God. Be patient and wait upon the ME. MY timing is perfect. I know the plans I have for you, good plans."

Did my questions get answered right away? Not at all. But all of those questions were answered loud and clear. Let me share them with you.

The questions we had about the doors closing for overseas were answered by a process of happenings. First out apartment church changed locations. Another group was moved to our old one and we joined our team at another location that they had been teaching for years at a different time. We went there for many months on Sunday's. Then someone donated a church building to Mission Arlington. We moved our very large congregation into that building in August of 2012. We not only meet on Sunday mornings but on Wednesday nights, too. John started teaching ESL on Monday nights there in September. We have a very large congregation. This was God's answer to why the doors closed to going overseas. It took a year for us to understand His plan but it was His timing, not ours. 

I am a very impatient person. I want things now and I want answers now. God doesn't work that way. But He continues to try to teach me the lesson of HIS timing not mine through every aspect of my life. Maybe one day I will actually get it.

I started working on remodeling the daycare during the late summer to fall of 2011. It was great in a way because we started from almost scratch since we had sold so much the year before when we were preparing to go overseas to live as cross cultural workers drilling water wells for people in need. I got to do some of the things with my preschool that I didn't do before, like a special reading area for the kids. It takes a LOT of time to get a daycare started up, even if you have done it for years and years. There is still a process to go through. All through that process I did everything I could to prepare. But when I was actually OPEN and no kids were here yet, it was a big let down for me. Satan uses moments like that to get me and make me doubt. I doubted the reasons for reopening. I thought maybe that wasn't what God wanted me to do, that I had heard Him wrong.

That didn't mean I stopped working on things. I found a great place to get a FREE website and worked on that for awhile until I could afford to purchase it and get my own web address. It is a really well done website and I am proud of the work I have put into it. I continue to update it monthly. I worked hours on finding ways to get my name out there and still continue to put time into that when needed.

Little by little, the kids came. John and I started talking seriously about him leaving his job and working with me when we had enough income for him to do it. It seemed more like a dream than a reality. But as May approached and we had several children in our care then it seemed possible. He came home from work one day and told me he had put in his two weeks notice. I almost fainted. The beginning of June was the beginning of a new adventure for our family. He started working full time at home. It took some adjustment and we are still adjusting in many ways.

As the summer passed in a blaze of busyness and fall approached we became focused on filling the remainder of our spots. It wasn't long before that happened. We have been able to pay off much of our debt and even make a few new purchases. In October we were able to buy a Jeep. It is really John's Jeep but we enjoy it as a family. We spend family time together on the weekends because we work hard at home all week long. It is so worth every minute. Our family is together and we are getting the bills paid without my husband spending 80 plus hours away from home.

My advice to you if you have questions about your life and your future is simple. Be still and know that He is God. Give it to Him and let Him show you the timing. Keep working towards the goals because those things must be done. Keep your eye on Him. His timing is perfect.

I can't wait to see all that He does in our lives in this new year. Do I still have questions? If you know me, you KNOW I do. I have lots of them. But after the amazing ride this last year has been I am looking forward to seeing how God shows me the answers instead of being uneasy about things. May God bless you all in the new year with peace that passes all understanding. That is a great gift to be given. 

Until next time...blessings to you.