Ethiopian food and a glimpse of Heaven

Hey this is Amy, writing on this bloggy thing again. I promised my Ethiopian prince x 2....I say it this way, because, it doesn't sound right to say the plural "princes", that sounds too much like they are princesses...anyhow, I promised Tegene "Ross" and Yerga "Winter" that I would make Ethiopian food for dinner tonite. It was yummy, as usual-and it is always, so healthy. Okay, I'm not really sure why I told you that except to say-I love that those 2 little guys are so proud of their heritage. They should be...as the Ethiopian people are so gracious and thankful and kind. Wow! Most of them have little or nothing, but they would give you the best morsel of meat if they had you to their home for dinner. They have little, in the eyes of the world, to be thankful for, but they are! Okay, Kara, now I want to go back, also. Think Dad would miss us?
All that said, to tell you of something someone said to me a few weeks ago. They saw me with all of the little kids and I think Kara was with me. So, we represented, America, China and Ethiopia.....this person said, "I bet your house might be a little glimpse of what Heaven is like"....now, I'm sure they meant with the different nations being under one roof, because I promise you, we are not angels! My response, because it had been a particularly noisy and chaotic at our house that day, was something like, "well, I hope it is not that noisy and chaotic in Heaven!" I meant it at the time! However, I do look forward to seeing "a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb" (Rev. 7:9) I did not previously grasp this global view of the Kingdom. I think most people are guilty of this ethnocentric view of the world-but we Anglo-Americans seem particularly guilty. And, unfortunately, the Church is not exempt-as much as we would like to think that we have a heart for all nations and promote missions and evangelism. Our desire is usually, truthfully, to feel comfortable here in our temporary home, by making everyone else look like us.....so, yeah, really, was Jesus a fair skinned man, that spoke English? I don't think so!
Wow, our family has had the pleasure of singing contemporary praise songs, old traditional hymns, black southern gospel, old hymns in the native caribbean language of the people on St. John, songs of praise in Mandarin and we've heard praise songs in our boys Amarhic language. Nothing is sweeter than to hear Chinese orphans singing praise songs in their native tongue, or Ethiopian boys singing praise to Jesus, in their native tongue, while they are in the van, heading to the airport to go "home" with their new Mommy and Daddy! Oh and I guess I should mention hearing Jesus Christ Superstar (you're old if you remember this) in Italian...yes, Italian! And, in each of these, the name of Jesus was lifted up! We have experienced a little glimpse of that" vast crowd....from every nation", from John's vision in Revelation! I look forward to seeing the whole shebang! But, here's my question....If this is what the Heavenly Kingdom will look like, why don't our churches look like this on Sunday morning?

Spontaneity

I have realized that I am a very spontaneous person. And that I have very spontaneous friends. Most Friday and/or Saturday we will meet at the Baskin Robins parking lot (don't ask why) and then drive around until we figure out what we are going to do. Well, Sunday afternoon, my friend and I decided we were in an artsy mood, so we went to a park and splatter painted. And it was awesome. The outcome of our activity is now sitting proudly in my room, and it looks quite nice if I do say so myself.

Writer's block...

I miss Ethiopia. Very much. I miss that adorable little girl in the orphanage with the big eyes and the hat on. I miss Lalibela and the villages surrounding it. I miss "Happy," our tour guide in Lalibela. I miss how nice and grateful the people were. I want to go back!!! Hopefully I will someday. My plan is to travel all over the world eventually. I want to be a missionary so maybe that dream will come true.

I feel like a hypocrite sometimes. Actually, I feel like a hypocrite a bunch. Like when I start complaining about what I "need" (really just what I want). Or when I sing praise songs about loving God and living for Him, but then continue to live a complacent life. I need to do something. How can I really love God without caring for others and giving everything up for Him? We say we love God, but we don't care for our hurting brothers and sisters in Christ. We try desperately to look like good Christians for other people without getting our hands dirty. Well, I don't want to be like that anymore. I want to experience this true love and life that Jesus lived out over two thousand years ago. But then again, I'll probably get off of here and not do anything about it. My friend said something like this once: "I talk good. I'm a good talker (haha). Not really, but you know what I mean. I know what to say, but words mean nothing if you don't live them out." I can't remember her exact words, but it was something to that effect. Well, I'm trying to actually live out my words. I won't be perfect, and I will probably fail at doing so, but hey, I'm 15 years old, at a private "Christian" school that makes me feel segregated from the rest of the world, and I'm only one person. I won't know what to do most of the time and I will get frustrated and maybe even complacent, but I am trying to live the kind of life that Christ would be proud of. I am trying to make a difference.

Now I just have to figure out how to start.

A Lesson in Leftovers from the Book of John

Just for the record...this is Amy and I didn't forget our blog... I've just been busy! Imagine that? And I totally would have blogged about Cooper's splinter in the behind, but Kara beat me to it! I think I must be a terrible Mom.....I laughed about the whole splinter thing-once I figured out that Cooper's leg wasn't hanging by a thread. Yes, that is how loud he was crying and screaming. I was in the kitchen and I could hear him all the way out at the barn!!
Our house church group is reading and discussing our way through the book of John. Last night we were reading through John 6, which I have read and contemplated alot lately, as Cooper and I also just read about feeding the 5000 in homeschool. But, I read John 6:13 and thought-why did Jesus have them gather the leftovers? Certainly, HE can provide food, WHENEVER HE wants to. We know He performs all sorts of miracles. Now, we don't have leftovers very often in our house- with 9 kids and often extras showing up for dinner and all.....and often times, if you're not here at dinnertime, well, then, you may have to dig to find your own dinner later. Especially if it's fresh fish, caught from the pond that very afternoon, right Shelby?? But, I believe, that Jesus' lesson in leftovers, is this....God always gives abundantly! Often times, I am so guilty, of giving Him only my "leftovers". But being the great God that He is, He takes that little bit of time, ability, effort, or resources that I have and He multiplies its effectiveness beyond my wildest expectations. If we take that first step of making ourselves available to God, even just what is "leftover" than HE will show us how we can be used to advance the work of HIS kingdom. That is not to say that we shouldn't give Him our all! Oh, how I want to....but He knows we grow weary and weak, so I'll keep plugging away. And praise God that He loves our "leftovers"-even if my kids don't! And, I stand in awe of seeing what He does with the leftovers, just as the 5000 did, after HE created leftovers from those 5 small barley loaves.......

Random...

AH! The trees are officially covered in leaves and it made me so happy that I decided to blog about it. Okay, so I'm not going to only talk about Spring, but I did find a quote about it today that I thoroughly agree with, no matter how old you are. Margaret Atwood once said, "In the Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." Well, I have succeeded. I laid in the grass for like thirty minutes today doing absolutely nothing except thanking God for the beauty of this season. It was awesome.

Oh, this is Kara by the way. I'm pretty sure Mom has already forgotten about this. Just kidding. Maybe. But I am going to tell her that she better start writing again or I will have to kick her out of this little thingie-ma-jig.

Family story of the day: So earlier today while I was at school and Mom was taking a break from teaching the boys, Cooper decided that he was going to make a slide out of a 2x4. So he's sliding down and apparently he got a huge splinter in his behind and Mom had to take him to convenient care. She said he screamed very loudly. Of course. But they put the splinter thing in this little container and I saw it earlier and it is big! So there's today's interesting story from the Crenshaw household.

What else has happened lately?.... Oh, I went barefoot at school on April 8th for a little bit until the teachers started getting onto some of the other kids since my principal ended up not letting us support it. Thumbs down. Oh well, maybe next year we'll organize it sooner. Ummm... My friends and I had our day in the park. We had an awesome picnic and then we flew kites, or attempted to, at least. I got mine up at one point for about five minutes, but then the string broke and my kite disappeared into someone's yard across the street. Here's the sweet part though: one of my church friends was there so he tried to go get my kite for me. He couldn't get it but we talked to him for a little bit and played with his little dog, Jane.

Well, I don't really have anything else to say. I guess I'll go now. This definitely isn't an awkward way to end a blog...

Happy Easter!

Well, it's Easter. And it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL outside! Right now, it is 79 degrees and I don't see a cloud in the sky. What an awesome day to remember Jesus' resurrection! We had some friends come over to eat with us, and Nat (oldest boy in the Crenshaw lineup) was home. We had a huge egg hunt, considering there were around 10 kids looking for them. But, despite all their efforts to find the most eggs, we'll probably still find some this summer. As a matter of fact, Tegene found one just a couple weeks ago, and he probably didn't even know what it was since this is his first Easter here at home.

I am in love with this weather. I keep talking about it, because it seemed like this winter just kept on and on. We usually never get that much snow here, but this winter we did. I think I would be okay with it if it didn't snow at all next winter, although I would probably miss all the snow days we got off from school. But anyway, in honor of this gorgeous weather, a few of my friends and I have decided to have a picnic tomorrow and we're going to fly kites, and of course we have to go see the latest movie based on one of Nicholas Sparks' books, "The Last Song." I'm super excited, partly because I love my friends, but mostly because I can't remember the last time I flew a kite! I'll probably be barefoot the whole time too, so that just makes it even better.

Speaking of being barefoot, my principal isn't letting us do the TOMS "Day Without Shoes." It makes me sad. I'll probably end up slipping my shoes off in each class anyway, though.

Well, I better go back outside now. Have a Happy Easter!!!