Service

I'm sure some of you are waiting for me to write about my trip. Sadly, I am not quite ready to do that. It takes a while to process how I feel about everything when I get back from an experience like that.
Thank you all for your patience. In the mean time, I will tell you a little story about something that happened this week.

Our church had two amazing men,Bill Davis and Steve Sjogren, speak this week about servant evangelism and outreach. They challenged us to show Jesus' love in practical ways. We were encouraged to break the stigma that Christians do nice things for others in order to get money or to get people to come to church. It was great stuff. Thursday morning, they partnered with us in heading out into Ames and serving people.

Judah, Mayah, Liam, and I went to the library where we go to story time and handed out roses to moms and suckers to kids. We also handed out little cards that said "On us." and "Seriously...It's free!" These cards had our church's name on it, so once the librarians caught wind of what we were doing, we were told we couldn't give anyone else the card. No big deal.

After a while, we packed up and headed for the mall with a couple other families. We had bags of microwave popcorn and dollar off gift cards for Pretzlemaker. Judah had a blast walking around chanting, "Free popcorn!!" He would walk up to complete strangers and ask them if they wanted popcorn. Most of the guys would look really confused and say, "No thanks", so after a while I began to explain to people that I was out trying to teach my kids how to serve others. After that, people were so sweet to Judah. It made my heart so happy.

On to my favorite part of the day: I saw a guy walk into Footlocker and told Judah to go in there and ask "that guy" if he wanted some. Judah clearly did not see which guy I was referring to, because by they time I rounded the corner and caught up, I saw a very confused little boy. Judah was standing in front of a headless mannequin with his hands on his hips. I asked him what was the matter, and he responded:

"Mama, this guy doesn't even have a head...how is he gonna eat popcorn???"

Precious.

Nicaragua

My trip to Nicaragua is quickly approaching! I am super excited. I am blessed to have people committed to praying for my team each day, and I thought you all might like to join them. Here is a brief rundown of how we will spending each day:

Friday: We leave for the airport at 6:45 am. We arrive in Jinotepe, Nicaragua in the late evening. You can be praying for the safety of our travel that day. It would be great if all of you would say a prayer for Will as he begins his journey as a stay at home dad for the week.

Saturday: We will be spending our day with the kids from the Arms of Love orphanage. We will take the kids to the beach, where they get to swim and have fun. These kids rarely get to go to the because it costs teams quite a bit of money to take them there for a day, so it is a pretty big deal for them to spend a day there. We will also treat them to a meal at a restaurant on the way home, which is another big deal.
Prayer for the day: Pray that God will use this time to show the kids how much they are loved, that we would begin to develop relationships with these kids, and that God would use our team (especially the women) to model modesty and Christian behavior.

Sunday: We will be spending our day at the orphanage. This is a day where we will just love on the kids again. We have some big group activities planned and some devotions and small group Bible studies with the kids.
Prayer for the day: Pray that God will use this time to strengthen the bonds we are making with these kids. Pray that God's love and compassion for them will be shown. Pray for strength and energy for my team as we run around and try to keep up with the kids!

Monday: We will be spending the morning doing work projects around the orphanage. The afternoon will be spent with an American couple who live there and do ministry with boys and girls who have been kicked out of orphanages or are transitioning from an orphanage to a "grown up world" situation. We will spend time with these young adults, and we will be bagging food to take to the dump the next day.
Prayer for the day: Pray for continued strength for the team. Pray that all of the supplies will get to the right location so we can bless the poor with food. Pray that we can help influence the young adults who are transitioning to stay on a godly path.

Tuesday: We will be spending the day at La Chureca. This is the city dump in Managua where hundreds of people live and work, sifting through piles of burning trash to sell. La Chureca is plagued with addiction and child prostitution...a place where parents will sell their daughters to the garbage men for prime trash. We will be handing out a weeks worth of food to the families who live there and praying for people.
Prayer for the day: Pray for protection for my team while we are at the dump. Pray for the people who live there to be open to what God might want to do.

Wednesday: Most of our team will be spending this day at Arms of Love with the kids. We will be doing work projects, devotions, and big group activities. Another part of our team will head into an area where child sex trafficking is huge. They will be prayer walking and just following the Holy Spirit's lead.
Prayer for the day: Pray for the team who will be with the kids. Pray for God to give us extra energy and strength. Pray for the team doing the prayer walking. Pray for protection and the ability to discern and follow the Holy Spirit.

Thursday: We will be heading out with the couple with whom we bagged food and went to the dump. We will be heading to some poverty stricken communities and handing out a weeks worth of food to families. We will also be praying and sharing the message of Christ with these people.
Prayer for the day: Safety for the team. Pray that God would ready the hearts of the people who will be hearing the message. Pray that we are all open to what God wants to do.

Friday: We will be leaving the orphanage at 3 am Friday morning to make the two hour drive to Managua and to the airport.
Prayer for the day: Pray for safety in traveling and re-entering the US.

Thank you to all those who have supported me financially and those who will support me in prayer. I am ready for God to do some amazing things!

Counting the Days...

I have been an unreliable blogger as of late. My deepest apologies to all of my loyal readers who have been sitting by their computers awaiting the newest nugget of brilliance to break forth from my fingers. To all of you haphazard readers who just happen to read about the Owens Five when you are bored and have exhausted your other internet sites, get over it :)

So the burning question is: What could be so important to have kept me away all week? I leave for Nicaragua in three and a half days and am trying REALLY hard to not put off being prepared until Thursday night. My MO is most commonly to pack the night before or even the morning of when I am going off on an adventure. The difference this time is that I am a co-leader for this trip. I have responsibilities. It will reflect poorly on my leadership if I forget a towel or toilet paper...won't it? Well, I also have things like devotions to prepare, so I am trying to get myself ready for this trip little by little each day. This just might revolutionize my entire way of preparing for a trip. Or I will arrive in Nicaragua and realize that I am just as unprepared as I always am. Only time will tell.

Maybe I should quickly recap what I am going on about...

I am co-leading a trip for my church to Jinotepe, Nicaragua. We are leaving Friday morning at 6:45 in the morning and will return the following Friday night. I am excited for many reasons. Selfishly, I am excited for the sun...the heat...the tan...the jungle...the delicious fruit...
I am excited for other reasons as well. Missions is something I am extremely passionate about. Off the top of my head, I can count 19 missions trips that I have been on or lead (the majority of them being to Cabrini Green in downtown Chicago). Will is amazing about letting me fill this need in my heart. I'm sure it is hard for him for many reasons, but mostly because I always come home with a plan to move my family there. (Will doesn't share my passion:)

While we are there, we will stay at an orphanage called Arms of Love (armsoflove.org). We will love on these abandoned children and do whatever we can to make their lives easier. We will also go to some of the poorer neighborhoods, hand out food to families, and pray for them. We will do some manual projects, devotions with the kids, large group skits and messages, and prayer walk in a neighborhood where sex trafficking is prominent. We will also visit the dump where thousands of families live each day and do some prayer ministry.

It is going to be an amazing trip. Your prayers will be appreciated. I will give updates as I can.

Book Repair

One might believe that a mother will have to deal with the same naughty behavior from child to child. Lots of times, Mayah will act out in some disobedient way, and Will or I will need to remind the other about moments or events when Judah had done or said the same thing. I feel like it is really easy to forget about the hard times with Judah, which makes Mayah's "in the moment" naughtiness seem so much worse. All kids act out. However, one child might do something the other would never have dreamed of doing. For example...

When Judah was a wee tot in his crib, he would wake up earlier than I was ready for him. To avoid getting out of bed, I would fix him a bottle (*gasp* "You gave him a bottle in his crib?!?!"...lay off, ladies. You've done it, too...you just lie about it when your doctor asks.) and give him five or six books to play with while I worked on getting out of bed or (heaven forbid) took a shower. Once I realized how well it worked, I would put the books in his bed at night before I went to bed. It worked out really well. If he woke up in the middle of the night or before 8:30, he learned that he wasn't going to be whisked out of bed. Instead, he would entertain himself and often go back to sleep. To all of you mamas who ask me how I teach my children to sleep past 8am, there it is. Neglect + learning to amuse oneself = babies who don't expect you to get them out of bed while it is still dark...okay...maybe not neglect. If you don't believe me that this tactic has it's merits, I had to drag Mayah out of bed at 8:45 this morning to make it to the 9:15 service at church.

Okay, moving right along. Knowing that this worked so wonderfully for Judah, I began to do the same thing when Mayah began to wake up too early. She, too, soon learned that waking up before Mama was ready wasn't going to fly. She, however, has a much more destructive side to her than Judah ever has. Instead of quietly amusing herself in her crib, Mayah took to tearing apart the books I would give her. Somehow, my strong little girl was able to rip the books at their seams. We have dozens of board books that are now just boards.

I finally decided to do something about all of the loose pages we have lying around our house. I went out to Staples and bought some loose leaf rings and began to punch holes near the spines of the books with my paper puncher. I then attached the pages together using the rings...so easy. I have, thus far, saved ten books from their impending fate in the dumpster.

William

Will turns thirty today. I know some of you are thinking, "No...come on! There is no way that handsome hunk of meat is already thirty!" while the rest of you are thinking, "Will is only thirty?" Well, no matter your secret thoughts, this blog is dedicated to my favorite man.
This is a photo of Will, Judah, and Mayah last year on Will's birthday. So much has changed! Most importantly, we have another baby (in case you didn't notice that Liam was missing). Will's leg is all healed up. Last year he had reconstructive surgery on his knee. He tore his acl while skiing when he was in college and, after ten years of inflammation and pain, we finally bit the bullet and got that thing fixed. I say bit the bullet because it was a preexisting condition, which means we are paying the full $6,000+ for the surgery out of pocket AND he was still in his brace while I was giving birth to our third child. I will let you imagine what that meant as far as helping out with a newborn. Another thing that has changed is that Judah is no longer in diapers! Something that is the same: my children still don't like wearing pants (I write these words as I look over at the kids watching Sesame Street in the buff.).


Will is an amazing father. My children adore their father. Liam is giddy when Will walks in the door. He is so patient with them. I have never heard him raise his voice at them. Even when they are freaking out, his tone is so gentle. "Take a deep breath" is his go to tactic. I am humbled by his patience. I feel so blessed to have a husband who loves his children so deeply.

This photo was taken last year when we went to Las Vegas for my big brother's wedding. Will and I don't take nice pictures together. We have ONE photo where we are both smiling and looking normal from eight years ago. I still have that picture in a frame waiting to be replaced by a more recent, normal looking photo. Will has this thing that he does with his eyes to amuse himself. His favorite time to do it is in a big group picture because it might not get noticed for a while. He is all about unexpected comedy. I think his dream come true would be that someone would call him years after a photo was taken to say that she just noticed how creepy Will looked. He is very patient with his jokes. My favorite part is how hard he laughs at himself once he sees the picture. He also LOVES to get in the background of stranger's photos and make this face. He doesn't even care if he gets to see the end result of his joke...now that's commitment.

This is one of the many reasons I love Will. He makes me laugh more than anyone on earth. God matched us perfectly.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WILL!! I LOVE TO LOVE YOU!!

State Wrestling

State wrestling can only mean one thing in the Owens house...wrestling is almost over!! Okay, that's not the only thing it can mean. It can also mean funnel cakes, strawberry smoothies, and some good wrestling matches. If you know me at all, you know that I am a basketball girl. I love basketball and am genuinely frustrated that Ames doesn't have a women's league. I would totally play...maybe. The other thing that you may or may not know about me is that I am way too insecure to ask people to be on my team. And I FOR SURE wouldn't be brave enough to just show up and get put on a team! This is the same reason I do not play Ames volleyball. As much as I would LOVE to be on a team, I can't bring myself to just get put on a random team...what if I suck...my glory days are over...I am way to competitive to accept it if I am not any good anymore.

Back to wrestling...sorry about that digression. So, I have always been all about basketball. I would go to wrestling meets in high school to support my guy friends, but I didn't pay close enough attention to know what was going on. Then I marry Will. Will wrestled at Central College while I was there, and often told me about his passion to coach some day. Almost seven years later and I am still learning. I am not going to pretend like I totally understand everything. I know a good number of the moves, ref signals, and proper things to shout, but I am so amateur. I have a lot to learn if my children are going to join their father in this passion.

It is a whole different world than basketball. One thing that cracks me up about wrestling fans is that they get annoyed if someone shows up to an important meet that has never shown interest before. When I was in high school, we were usually ranked #1, undefeated, and two time state champions and the stands were always usually empty until the boys game began. No one but our parents traveled to watch us play regular season games. We would have killed to have one or two more people show an interest and were jazzed when people came to our state games. We finally had fans, no matter how fickle they might be. Wrestling fans whisper behind your back if you just show up at state without having supported them before. They only want true fans :)

Okay, back to the reason for my blogging...Judah and I have been going down to state every day to support Will. Wednesday, I dressed the kids up in Gilbert clothes and got a photo of them with Will before he left. This is of Judah and I today at the meet. He has been to state every year since he was born.
Sister-in-law, Caitlyn, and Judah (also included: man behind Caitlyn picking his nose)

Judah posing with the wrestlers behind him

Judah really wanted to make sure that his cup got in the photo. It is, you see, his favorite color.

I love this kid.

Judah brought his "super hero animals" with him. We tangled them in Caitlyn's hair for fun.

Will on the mat during one of the matches

Judah and I plan on going back tomorrow. Thankfully, I have had some great friends and a super mother-in-law watch Mayah and Liam while we go. I am enjoying special Mama-Judah time!

Her Singing Debut

I have posted videos of Judah blessing us with his love for singing on this blog but never Mayah. Mayah has developed a new love for singing and dancing. Her vocabulary has exploded over the last few months, and I am still shocked when she throws out a long sentence or a new word.

We head to Mommy & Me music every other Tuesday for singing, dancing, and interpretive actions. This is a ministry that we have at our church, which has been going on for three (I think) years now. I started taking Judah when he was too young to do actions or sing along, and now that he is four, he still doesn't do actions or sing along. Here is a breakdown of how M&M usually goes: The 5 year olds stand in the middle like good examples and sing and do the actions. The 3-4 years olds sprint circles around the mommies and babies who are sitting around in a circle. Often times, they will dive under a table or hide in a bathroom. The 1-2 year olds do their best to avoid getting trampled by the older kids, occasionally spinning in circles to the music. The infants sleep in their car seats or lay on their mommy's laps. The mommies sing and do the actions. It is quite a sight!

I tell you this to give you an idea of why I am so shocked when I catch Judah or Mayah singing a song from Mommy & Me. This song is called Five Little Monkeys. If you didn't know the song, you wouldn't know that Mayah is singing at all. At first I thought she was scolding Judah for something. Enjoy:

Five little monkeys swinging from a tree,

teasing mister alligator, "Can't catch me!"

Along came mister alligator, quiet as can be

and snapped that monkey right out of the tree!

My two favorite moments: I love that when I ask her to sing, she goes back to stand at the spot where she was singing before I turned the camera on. It was as if she were performing on a stage. I also love when she is spinning circles and slips on a book. I love her.