Sometimes I Write

Speaking of princesses…

This is Sabrina Abreu de Oliveira. She lives in Brazil and she’s six years old. She has been a part of the Nowell family since November, 2003, and we love her dearly! She lives with her parents, who work as laborers, and her sister Samia. She writes us the best letters with the help of her translator, Ayla. Like Max, she is a budding artist and draws pictures all over her letters. This is the story of how she joined our family:

Benny and I had been thinking about sponsoring a child through Compassion International for awhile. (Like there is anything to think about!) We had been to several concerts where Compassion was being promoted, and we decided to wait and make the decision as a family – really to let Max have a part in choosing our sponsored child. Max was thrilled with the idea! Benny took him up to his office so they could get on the Compassion website. They filled out all the necessary information – in Max’s name. Max decided he wanted a girl, then 4 pictures of children from different countries appeared on the screen to choose from. Max looked right at Sabrina and said, “That’s her”. He was so excited he couldn’t sit still. Then he asked Benny when we were going to get her. He thought we were adopting her and she was going to come and live with us! He was really upset when Benny explained to him that she was indeed part of our family, but she still had a family of her own in Brazil. We had talked to Max about adoption ever since he could remember, so he just assumed that this was it. Pick your child, then go get them. (I wish!)

We have really enjoyed receiving her letters and updates. It’s been great teaching our kids about the needs of others and they have a hand in that every time we send her letters with pictures, stickers, coloring pages, etc. They’re also learning that money is a good thing when it is used to help other people. We try to write back to her as soon as we receive her letters since it takes awhile for mail to be delivered. It’s amazing to watch her grow and develop. We hope to be able to visit her someday, but until then we’ll continue to send financial support, love and encouragement her way. We are committed to her for as long as she needs us. Her picture sits in our livingroom along with the other Nowell children. Everyone that enters our home sees her beautiful smiling face!

$32.00 a month. That’s giving up a family meal at Chili’s. That’s so much less than most of us spend/waste on little things we don’t need. That’s all it takes to sponsor a child in need through Compassion International. We thought when we decided to sponsor Sabrina that we were blessing her life and giving her hope, and we are, but she has blessed us in so many unexpected ways. We are thankful for organizations like Compassion, World Vision, and others like them that provide opportunities for us to give and serve, and look beyond our own needs. We are thankful to have Sabrina, our little Brazilian princess, in our lives!

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It seems I’ve been on this princess kick lately.

First I read Captivating which basically says that we women want to know, and be told we’re beautiful and we’re worth fighting for. (AMEN!) From an early age we want our fathers to dance with us, we want skirts that twirl, and we play dress up and games that we are the heroine or the rescued damsel of the story. It’s no wonder Disney has made millions off the princess theme. (I’ll take that over Barbie any day!) And I absolutely loved The Princess Diaries and most other princess stories – especially Ever After with Drew Barrymore. I thought Ella Enchanted was dumb.

The theme was presented to me again at the Women of Faith conference. Nicole Johnson has an incredible skit about it, which made me cry, ofcourse. She has also written a book, Keeping a Princess Heart in a Not-So-Fairy Tale World. Sheila Walsh has a book for little girls about it. It’s called Gigi; God’s Little Princess. There’s a whole gift pack you can buy. It comes with the book, a pink princess t-shirt, a sparkly tiara with fuzzy pink trim, and a pink case to carry it all in. (Guess what Zoe is getting for her birthday this year.)

Then we watched Ice Princess as a family tonight. Zoe, at age 2 1/2 liked it, and Max decided he wants to go skating for his birthday :). (I hope it’s not THAT cold here in late September) jk

It seems to me the recurring theme is that the princess in all of these situations and stories has something to overcome. I can relate to that. I think most women can. I like knowing that I have overcome some difficult circumstances in my life. But I also like the thought of being rescued, whether it be by a knight in shining armor (mine came with cowboy boots and lariat), or by the God who created the universe and thinks of me as his beloved princess…a true daughter of the King of kings. I like the femininity of it. I like the vulnerability of it. I like pink. That’s been “my color” for the past two years, can you tell? lol

I’m puzzled by the number of friends I have who don’t like pink. A friend recently said to me that she was glad she had a boy and if she had had a girl she would have been wearing a lot of green and yellow. (???) She’s not alone in her tastes, and I just don’t get it. I love pink – it’s girly. I want my girl to be girly whatever color she’s wearing, but she sure looks cute in pink – which is her favorite color. More than once Benny has taken Zoe to the store with him with her dressed from head to toe in pink ballerina stuff, tutu and all. He is great at letting her know that she’s beautiful and worth fighting for. He’s great at letting me know that too.

I have some questions for you:
Men – do you let the women in your life know they are beautiful? Do they know how much you love them? Do they know you would fight for them? Be it wife, daughter, sister, or friend, they NEED to know.

Ladies – Do you know you are beautiful? Do you know how much you are loved? Do the men in your life know how much you love and/or adore them? Do you let them know that they have what it takes? Be it husband, son, brother, or friend, they NEED to know too.

Yep, there’s definitely something to this whole princess thing. I wonder if I’m hearing the message that is meant for me in it. I would assume there is one since it keeps popping up in my life. Maybe it’s just the reminder that I am one. What do you think?

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I have to admit I loved teasing you about today’s big announcement. It may or may not even effect you at all. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for awhile now. Different circumstances in my own life and the lives of a few of my friends are what made me finally decide to just do it. So here it is…I’ve given birth…to a new blog.

SUPERMOM is a blog for my mommy friends. There have been so many times that I’ve begun posts about silly things, sometimes even annoying things, my kids have done, then thought about all of my guy friends, or my friends without children, and thought to myself, “only your mommy friends care about hearing stories like that”, or “some things are only funny to those who have been there too”. Not that I’m going to stop sharing my family stories on MY Journey.

I know that one of my spiritual gifts is encouragement and I feel (and have always felt) God calling me to be an encouragement to other mothers. I loved being involved with MOPS and some of the other moms groups over the years. The idea for my ministry of encouragement was born at the HEARTS AT HOME convention in Normal/Bloomington, Illinois. I have all of these friends who are just starting to have babies, and several that have children about the ages of mine. We have struggles that are unique to parenting little ones and sometimes we feel invisible to the world around us. There are days that a kind word, a thoughtful gesture, and many arrow prayers are all that get us through until bedtime.

Up until we moved to Colorado I effectively “ran” my encouragement ministry over the phone and through the occasional card or note. I had unlimited long distance on my home phone so it was no problem to walk around my house with my headset on and talk to my friends around the country while I did laundry, dishes, whatever needed to be done. I was careful (most of the time) to schedule my calling around the kids schedule and around the needs of whichever friend I was focusing on that day. I didn’t have a computer so phone was my best option. Now I have a computer and NO long distance on my home phone. I have lots of minutes on my cell phone, but I share them with Benny, so I have to be careful.

I fell in love with blogging back in November. That was about a month after we got our computer. I’m hooked! I’ve said many times that it’s very therapeutic for me. I don’t just mean me getting my feelings and thoughts out. I’ve been so encouraged by reading the blogs of my friends, some old friends, some new to me through blogging. I’ve learned so much in this short time, but the one truth that has been reinforced to me over and over again (and it’s the one I most needed to hear) was that I am not alone. Mothering small children can feel very isolating, whether you’re at home during the day with them or you’re at home with them after working at a job. The purpose of SUPERMOM is to encourage other mothers by sharing ideas, quotes, and stories, and by inviting other mothers to share their stuff as well. I think I can handle both blogs now that I’m beginning to FLY again. To make things easier on myself I kept the same template since I already know how to play with the html code to add and change things in the sidebar. So click on over to SUPERMOM and check her out. If you’ll notice the URL, it speaks volumes…We are heroes!

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I can’t believe I’ve posted one hundred entries since November. Since I don’t post every day, I thought it would take me longer than this to reach 100. What is the significance of this? I have no idea – there isn’t anything special about it. I just needed a reason to celebrate today :). It turns out I have two reasons! (later)

Back in February I went back to the beginning of my blog and started to print each entry so I could save them in a binder. I got as far as Feb.10th and stopped. I probably ran out of ink or something like that. It’s encouraging to me to glance back and see how far we’ve come in less than a year’s time and also see how God has provided and answered our prayers. Well, I’m going to finish printing them off and that’s driving Benny crazy! His type wants to save everything electronically and not waste paper, have to store the printed material somewhere, blah blah blah! I want to be able to sit anywhere in the house and reread my journey of faith and life while sipping hot chai. Our computer is in the guest bedroom /office, and I wouldn’t sip anything anywhere near it because I have a tendency to drip. Besides, it’s like holding a good book in my hands. I want to feel the smooth paper as I turn the pages. I want to smell the ink. I want to be able to hand it to a friend and say, “Here’s a piece of my life”. There’s also the little issue of the 3.5 disks I still have with info on them that I can’t retrieve because our computer doesn’t have the appropriate drive on it. I know you can purchase that stuff, but realistically we aren’t going to spend our money on it for just a few disks. I need to find a friend with an older computer so I can transfer my data to CD-rom. Ahhh technology! 😦

Now for the 2nd reason to celebrate. Benny is in the office today for the first time, and he’s pumped. We were talking this morning before he left and he said, “I need a laptop”. WHAT??? We can’t afford a laptop! M-W mornings are spent in the office where everyone has their laptops (wireless internet) and works on their individual business stuff like follow up with support teams, DB business, training, communications, preparing for Bible studies, etc. (I guess the street kids aren’t out until around lunch.) So Benny springs this on me and I’m thinking, o.k. we’ll save up over the next couple of months and get him a laptop. We don’t have all the money right now. Maybe we could send out an email to our support team and see if any of them have a laptop they aren’t using anymore. It could happen. He called me when he got to the office and it just so happens that a generous lady in San Antonio sent a one-time gift: a check for $1,000.00. PRAISE GOD! So Benny and Matt are going laptop shopping next week.

Once again I am reminded that God knows our needs and our wants. We don’t always get them, but sometimes we do. I hope I am as grateful towards God during the times we don’t get what we want as I am now that He provided the money for this needed equipment through this sister in TX. God has provided what we need to be here in Denver this year and train with/work with this awesome ministry. He provided through people like you praying for us and people in 8 different states pledging monthly financial support through next August. Amazing! I can’t even think of the words to say when “Thank You” doesn’t quite convey how I feel.

What a great day! I also have a big announcement to make tomorrow…you’ll have to wait until then…I’m not going to tell you what it is right now…I know – I’m a tease! Quit guessing so hard. You may not even think it’s a big deal. Then again, you might! 🙂 Until tomorrow then.

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This weekend I was priviledged to go to my first Women of Faith conference. Me, and 16,ooo other women gathered at the Pepsi Center in downtown Denver to celebrate our faith, and be encouraged by wonderful speakers, comedians, and musical artists. I have never in my life seen so much pink, purple and lime green in one room. There were women there of every nationality, shape and size. What a creative God we serve to make us all so different and yet knit our hearts together from the same material. I came away from the weekend feeling dearly loved by God, wonderfully blessed by the presenters, and depressed that I couldn’t buy all of the stuff they were selling. 🙂 Boy, there was definitely money to be made by all of the books, CD’s, DVD’s, t-shirts, tiara’s, mugs, etc. that were for sale not only for the conference, but for each of the presenters as well. I have self-control issues when it comes to buying cute tote bags and books to fill them, so it was a good thing we’re still a week or so away from payday. I enjoyed my $4.00 Pepsi and settled in the thought that if it’s a must-have (and I know it’s not), they have a web-site to shop from, and I have a Pastor Perks card for Family Christian Stores. It was not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy, buy, buy.

I loved listening to these six unforgettable women whose words reminded me all over again that we are ordinary people who have faith in an extraordinary God. They were dynamic speakers and performers. Hats off to Luci Swindoll, Marilyn Meberg, Thelma Wells, Nicole Johnson, Patsy Clairmont, and Sheila Walsh and special guests Jennifer Rothschild, Avalon, Nichole Nordeman, and the WOF Worship Team. You all were just awesome!

As I said, I got to see/hear Avalon and Nichole Nordeman in concert. Both were fantastic, but Nichole was the highlight for me. Her music and lyrics speak to my soul in a way that few others have been able to. I truly believe that she is one of the ways God has blessed me and spoken to me over the past six years. If you are unfamiliar with her musical genius, you’re missing out. If you have a MARDEL’S store anywhere near you, she is the artist of the month for August and all of her 4 CD’s are on sale for $9.99 each. Or visit her website at http://nicholenordeman.com

After all of that, I want to talk about an ongoing discussion my friend Jennifer and I are having about the Christian community. WE (me included) are our own sub-culture. We have our own bookstores, coffee shops, bumper stickers, radio stations, day care centers, dry cleaners, and t-shirts. The list goes on, but you get my point. This was all very obvious to me at the conference. We even have our own language which is politely referred to as Christianese. Now, some of these things aren’t bad in and of themselves. The problem arises when we have our own everything and don’t touch or get touched by the world around us. My initial argument was that I want my money, wherever it’s going, to further the kingdom of God, so why not support Christian based businesses? But now I’m thinking about what makes a business Christian-based. A fish symbol as their logo? How about being closed on Sundays so all of their workers can attend church services and spend time with their families? Or is it if the business is owned by people who proclaim Christ in their lives? Jennifer and I have both worked for “Christian” bosses that had very ungodly business practices, and treated their employees, and sometimes their patrons, like crap! So how do I decide where to spend my money? If I need car repairs done, I want an honest mechanic. How will I know if he’s a believer or not? I just want an HONEST guy who is mechanically gifted to fix my van. What about groceries? Walmart doesn’t have any Christian symbols in their logo, but that’s where I shop because it’s affordable and it’s one stop shopping for this busy mother of three. I guess whether or not it’s a Christian based business is a little irrelevant in some cases. No matter where I shop, I have the opportunity to share Jesus with others. Not just carrying my Bible around so everyone can see how spiritual I am, but talking and laughing with the check out ladies at Walmart, and smiling at the greeters and thanking them when they hand me my cart. Being polite to everyone I meet regardless of my mood or theirs. That’s really a challenge!

This discussion comes up during training with Dry Bones. We don’t wear WWJD bracelets and t-shirts on the streets. We don’t need one more visible thing that separates us from the street kids. It’s a barrier. We know we are different and should be acting like we are different, but not alienating them. We are to be IN the world, but not LIKE the world. Boy that’s open to interpretation huh? Are we in the world if we only deal with Christian people? Are we like the world if we dress like them? I remember talking with a kid that was in our youth group several years ago. He was not allowed to listen to Christian music, mainly Christian Pop/Rock because it sounds just like the “worldly” music and how would anyone who heard him listening to it know that difference. The assumption here was that he would be viewed as worldly and that would be bad. I remember fighting the urge to grab his parents by the neck and have a little chat about what they teach their kids. Afterall, I listened to all kinds of music, did that make me worldly? If I was so worldly, why would they let their kids be in our youth group? I guess I tend to get a little defensive, could you tell? 🙂 lol

So what is being “worldly”? My husband is tall, bald, wears a lot of black, has an 8″ long goatee and a tattoo. He loves the Lord and I’d say he’s a pretty spiritual guy. Some would SEE him and dismiss him as worldy. One of my friends, who will remain nameless to protect the innocent (me), is tall, cleancut, hardworking, responsible and provides for his family, but is not a believer. Is he worldly? It’s a hard word to define. Does it come down to what we value? My friend Webster defines worldly as “Of, pertaining to, or devoted to the temporal world; not spiritual or religious; secular.”

What about politics? I’ve been involved in this long debate on my friend Sarah’s blog. I’ve been criticized for some things I said regarding the possibility of a female president in the white house in response to Sarah’s post. It took on a whole new tone for me when a fellow believer (I assume she is because she went to a Christian college) said something about politics having nothing to do with morals. Boy do I take issue with that! I don’t believe we get to separate from our morals when making any decisions, political or otherwise. I pointed out to her that we are Christians before we are Americans and while we are Americans. Republican does not translate religious fanatic just as Democrat does not translate liberal heathen. How does the word “worldly” play into this debate? I must admit I was tempted to act very “worldy” and be nasty in my response, and sometimes when I don’t think before responding I am nasty. I want it to be second nature that I’ll respond in a loving manner and be thought-provoking instead of wrath-inviting.

Where’s the line? How can I best be a Christian woman in a fallen world, fit in well enough to have a positive influence, yet remain not of the world? How can I look enough like the world that they give me a chance, yet look different enough from the world that they see something they want or need? How can I touch the world as God made me to touch it without getting it on me? lol How can I touch the world without getting Jesus on them? So many questions…

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