My Costa Rica Mission Trip

Herradura, Costa Rica

In October 2017, I will be a part of a Pure Joy International mission trip going to Costa Rica!! Our team will host a 4-day conference for missionary women serving in Central and South America. Our theme this year for the women is: “Crossing the Jordan” from Joshua 3:5.

“Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” ”
– Joshua 3:5

Last year, I went on my first international mission trip to Mexico with Pure Joy International. It was an amazing experience and God confirmed in my heart that He wants me to continue to be involved in this ministry. I am thankful to the Lord for another opportunity to serve missionary women.

Pure Joy International

I am going on a mission trip to Herradura, Costa Rica with Pure Joy International. Pure Joy International is a ministry to missionary women overseas. The heartbeat of their ministry is to keep missionary families and individual missionary women on the field of service where God has placed them. Pure Joy International is a loving yet a “get to the heart of the matter” ministry. They believe encouragement comes through convicting, affirming, and challenging the women. It is not our responsibility to make those things happen. It is our responsibility to sit before a Holy God and yield to His Spirit as He directs us very specifically in regard to messages, worship, fellowship, free time, and other activities orchestrated for each group of missionary women we have the privilege to minister to. Therefore, we desire to walk out the principle of God’s Word in Isaiah 43:20: “I will make springs in the desert, so that my chosen people can be refreshed.” This begins with Pure Joy providing a four day, three night stay in a hotel/resort at no cost to the missionary women.

Pure Joy not only ministers to missionary women overseas but it is an “inside-out” ministry.  God encourages women from local churches to involve themselves in various aspects of the ministry through prayer groups, financial sponsorship of missionary women attending, and actually being a part of a team going to minister to the women missionaries through messages, worship, hospitality, and media.  Our desire is that we are touching lives for His Glory from here to there.

For the past several years, I have participated in the state side aspects of the Pure Joy mission trips. I have been a prayer partner, made crafts, and written letters to missionary women. I am so thankful that last year the Lord has called me to be a part of the team that went to Guanajuato, Mexico. This year, I will be in Costa Rica from October 21st-28th, 2017.

Ways You Can Be Involved

Before I leave for Costa Rica there are many preparations to be done. I will need help with crafts, missionary cards, and favorites bags. I will be sure to let everyone know, as specific needs arise. In the meantime, please let me know if you want help me with some of the things that I need to do in the coming weeks.

We trust the Lord to provide all of the finances that I need for this trip. If you feel led to give financially, please make your checks payable to “Pure Joy International”. Don’t put my name on the check, but please put a note in the envelope with my name on it or you can just email Patty, to let her know if you gave online.

Keep Me in Your Prayers

• Pray for the missionary women who will attend this conference in Costa Rica and that they would be refreshed, by fellowship with other believers in Christ.
• Pray for sponsorship for the missionary women.
• Pray for gifts being made or given and that they will all be finished before we leave for Costa Rica.
• Pray for our team, for cohesiveness and that the Lord would work through us.
• Pray for the Lord to provide all of my financial needs. I need $2,643.93 due by October 7th, 2017.
• Pray for the Lord would give me a specific scripture or word for this trip.
• Pray for Jon and that he would be give time off, so that he can stay home and watch the girls while I am gone.

2016-17 Homeschool Update

Let me start by saying that God has called us to be a homeschool family. Click here to read our homeschool testimony.

Last school year, (2015-16) I did some preschool activities with Olivia and Sophie. However, in the Fall of 2015, I gave birth to my 3rd daughter Matilda. It became hard to keep up with school activities, because I was overwhelmed with trying to take care of my new baby. Technically...we never completed preschool.

Fast forward to this year, I was determined to try homeschooling again. Olivia would be in PreK and Sophie would be in preschool. I wanted this year to be better than last year, which would include actually finishing our school year. Leading up to the 2016-17 school year I did a lot of research about different homeschool curriculums. We attended a homeschool conference. I even watched YouTube videos to learn from other Moms who have gone before me. All of this helped me to know how to structure our homeschool and become more familiar with this style of education.

As far as curriculum goes...
For Olivia, we chose Sonlight as our main curriculum, because we thought would be best for our family. This curriculum comes with a weekly lesson plan, which has been helped for me (the homeschool newbie). We have paired Sonlight with Math-U-See Primer; Sing, Spell, Read, & Write; & Handwriting without Tears.

For Sophie, we chose to use ABC Jesus Loves Me and Playing Skillfully. The girls do school together, so Sophie has read all of the Sonlight PreK books too.

As a family, we have had such a fun year learning together!! We've read lots of amazing books, completed lapbooks, finished projects, gone to the library, gone on field trips, watched a play, traveled to China, colored, cut & pasted, the list goes on and on.

I'm excited to say that we are just a few weeks away from wrapping up our first official  school year as a homeschool family!! I have learned so much this year. I can't wait for us to start a new year of homeschooling this Fall.

Our Homeschool Testimony

Today, I want to share with you how the Lord called us to be a homeschool family.

Jon was homeschooled and I went to public school. Understandably, we each had very different ideas about what kind of school our future children should attend. Education became one of those hot topics in our marriage that we tried not to talk about, because we only seemed to disagree.

In 2010, while I was listening to KLOVE radio, I decided to do The Love Dare challenge. On Day 12 of The Love Dare it said, "Today’s Dare: Demonstrate love by willingly choosing to give in to an area of disagreement between you and your spouse. Tell them you are putting their preference first."

While reading this dare, the Lord immediately brought homeschooling to my mind.

What!?

I couldn't believe that the Lord wanted me to give up my own views of education and submit to Jon's ideas. I wanted to obey the Lord, but it seemed like there might be an easier way than giving in to homeschooling.

I was wrong.

When Jon got home that evening, I could barely get the words out. Eventually, I told him that as far as education goes, I would be willing to homeschool our children, if that is what Jon thought was best.

At the time, it was hard to lay down my pride and my views. However, I'm so thankful that the Lord settled this issue for us long before we had children. It's never been a sore spot again and the Lord has blessed us as we have followed Him in obedience and homeschooled our children.

Now, we've almost finished our first year of homeschool and I'm not sure who enjoys it more, me or the girls.

Homeschooling has been such a blessing for our family!!

Starting a New Chapter

At the beginning of 2017, I started a new chapter in weight loss journey. I am currently trying to lose the weight that I gained while I was pregnant with my 3rd daughter, Matilda. Honestly, I feel like my weight loss journey has been on hold for about 1 year now, because I was determined to nurse Matilda until her first birthday. Last year, I tried to lose weight off and on, but I was always worried that it would negatively affect my milk supply. A lot of people lose weight while nursing, but that wasn't the case for me. All that to say, I put my weight loss on hold until I was finished nursing my baby.

I am excited to say that the Lord answered my prayers and allowed me to nurse Matilda until she was one year old!! This was such a wonderful accomplishment for me, because I wasn't able to nurse my older daughters. I am so thankful to be a stay-at-home Mommy and have plenty of time to focus on caring for my baby. However, now that Matilda is growing up and I am not nursing anymore, I feel like it is time to focus on myself a little more and work to get rid of this baby weight.

I started seriously following Weight Watchers again at the beginning of January. In just a few weeks, I have already lost -6.4 pounds!! I'm so excited to see the weight begin to come off.

Here's a picture of my babies from Thanksgiving!! They're getting so big!!

My babies.

 I've missed blogging and hope to continue to keep you updated on my weight loss journey!!