Who's counting those Candles?! Where have the years gone?! We love you, Natasha! Natasha was "over cake" so she asked for a Peanut Butter Pie this year... with all of those candles it looked a bit "shell shocked!" :)

Happy Birthday, Natasha! How glad we are that Jesus sent you to us. My how the time has flown though! We pray that you'll always seek God's best! We love you so much!

Our Easter/Birthday meal together!

A Few of Her Favorite Things! We usually make quite a to-do with Birthdays around our Haus! This year was no exception... I asked Natasha early enough to plan what she wanted for her birthday meal and got an unusual request! She asked that I make something that we were served over in Romania by some dear friends. Her request? Homemade Schnitzel with Noodles! Yikes,... that was a new one for me to make... so I wrote and asked our dear friend, Sally Sebo, for help. She was so kind as to translate this recipe for me and also gave me a website to "see" it all... Thanks so much, Sally. Here's the finished product! I was thankful for the Lord's help! For those of you "Sound of Music" lovers, you may recall that Schnitzel with noodles is one of her favorite things listed in that song, "My Favorite Things"!


Resurrection Eggs! You can only see a couple of them... but these have become a very real part of our Easter Celebration each year. Years ago while on Deputation we were invited to have dinner with some dear friends who introduced us to the Resurrection Eggs and then gave the set to us after dinner was over. We will never forget your kindness, Beckers, We love you! How could we have known that years later God would lead us here and that we get to have you as our mission directors?! Thanks again so much for your love and support!
That's the news from our Haus! Laura ~ (with MUCH of Natasha's help!!)

Happy birthday to the most wonderful Pop-Pop! Thank you for being such a great grandfather! We love you all LOTS!!!
Hope you have a great day!
Love,
Natasha ,Brittany ,Darla ,and Bryan~

On our way up the mountain we had to go through a really LONG tunnel.

Just barely hanging on! This is Elijah hanging on to the rails at the top of the train. Don't worry Daddy was holding him by the waist.
This is another picture on our way. Here we are passing a train going down.


This is right after we got off the train at the top of the mountain.


And we are finally up at the top! This is overlooking Bogota.
It was a gorgeous view!
More to come...
Natasha~

He is Risen! And every good Russian would respond, "He is risen, indeed!" In Russian, the word for Sunday ,"Vas Cresaynyuh", means Resurrection.

Laura and the kids made these homemade Reese's peanut butter eggs and distributed them to our wonderful neighbors.

Here is a REAL LIVE Llama! It was really neat to get to see one!
This is the mountain that we rode up. You could hike it, but it is not recommended for American's for their safety.
Our last day in Colombia we had the privilege to go to Simon Bolivar's house. For those of you who have no clue who he is....he helped to liberate several of the South American countries. Being a history lover, I really enjoyed it.

This is Simon Bolivar's dining room.
This is the back of his house. Right behind were the picture was taken there is beautiful gardens and the huge mountain that we were on. It was beautiful!
Hope you enjoy,
Natasha~

I apologize for the few pictures of Kimberly for she was always running around working with me. Here is one of the good pictures that we got the day before we left.
And here is the famous "EWWWW Gross Desert" or "Dirt." It looks disgusting, but it was actually VERY good!
This is Pastor Alberto and Pastor Rigoberto laughing at being served "Dirt and Worms"!
As always, more pictures to come! :)
Natasha~

It is a family tradition, at least for the younger Dickinson's, that as soon as Family devotions are finished they run and get a piggy back ride from U. Phillip. Here they are getting a wild horsey ride instead!
Elijah's impression of Wayne. Here he is drinking hot sauce!

A Few Random pictures while helping around the house! Elijah making a silly face!

An everyday occurrence!

Here I am with a favorite pastime....doing dishes!


Here is me eating a Colombian fruit. It would be similar to a pomegranate. The juice was good, but the texture of the seeds was hard to get used to (if you can't tell by my face)! Elijah loves these and so he helped me finish mine!
Hope you enjoy! More pictures to come.
Natasha~

And Here is Elijah enjoying 1 of the 300 Dum-Dum suckers that we brought! Don't worry he didn't eat all of them..we gave about 100 to two of the pastors in Colombia, passed some out at church for a treat, and the Dickinson's enjoyed the rest! :)

Here is Noah enjoying some gifts. If you look close you can see some of the airplanes from Bryan and Gram.

For offertory Kimberly and I played a violin duet. We played the hymn "Amazing Grace."


Daddy preached the Sunday morning message after we had sung about 10 songs! Some of the songs were hymns that we knew and others were Latin American songs.

This is Colombian culture. The man is required to push the lady around, all day, everyday, up and down the hills, across the streets, up the stairs, and if you believe that; I have some beach front property for sale in Florida.

Thank you for your prayers. We made it back safely. Here we are with my nephew.

Being Where God Can Use You!

To quote my Best Friend, on this earth,(my sweetheart) "sometimes you do something because it's the right thing to do, even when all the 'numbers' might not add up, in the human"! As most of you know, now Daryl is in Colombia teaching a class on Spiritual Leadership, this week. What you might not know is that Natasha is with him. She came to us a few weeks back, asking if she could go along to help. Heather, as you know is on complete bedrest with complications with the pregnancy of their 5th baby. The desire of Natasha's heart is to be used of God wherever He can be used! It has been such a blessing to watch her grow in the Lord as she used this opportunity to learn what it means to seek God's will for HER!
Please do keep them in your prayers this week. They both are feeling inadequate, but are seeking the Lord's help in all things... even dishes, laundry giving Kimberly, Sarah and Noah a needed break from all the work that they have carried these last few weeks for their Mommy and even hoping to help watch sweet lil' "Whyjah"when needed! (Dickinson's special name for their little boy Elijah!)
Our prayers are with you, though we miss you MUCH here at home, Sweets and Natasha, we are glad that you are willing to allow God to use you where He can! To God Be the Glory!
(Natasha, you know Mommy can't do this blogging thing... so thus the reason for No photo attached!:) You could do that if you like from one of the photos that you have taken over there, or the nice one of You and Daddy that I took at the airport just before you left! We luv and miss you much!

After tearing a ligament in my ankle one particular Friday evening (yes of course it was on the basketball court), one of his sons asked me if I wanted to stay at their house for a few days. I didn't want to impose, but the thought of hobbling up and down stairs in the 'cold' dorm, quickly changed my mind. So, I spent the next 5 or 6 days in the home of Dr. Robert Whitaker. He was the President of the College, so I was a little intimidated. However, his tender smile and gentle spirit eased any anxiety within me. I had seen him as a 'position', but now I saw him as a man, and I was not disappointed. He was real!

In one particular chapel message, he illustrated that he didn't think anyone could play the piano. It's impossible to play an instrument that has so many keys. It can't be done. However, he went on to say, we all had previously heard that it could be played, and the piano was played quite well. Beautiful music came from that impossible instrument. People say holiness isn't possible. It can't be lived. You can't do it. But with God's help, the life of holiness can be lived and has been been lived by many saints.

The message in that illustration has never left me. Thank you Dr. Whitaker for being real. You made an impression on my life that went beyond head knowledge. Knowing Christ and making him known!

• Bear the blame; do not share or transfer it.
• Give thanks when credit for your own work or ideas is given to another.

(taken from Spiritual leadership by J. Oswald Sanders)

Ouch! and Amen!

One Tall Grandma!
This is a picture of my Great-Grandma Bryan in a nightcap that her mother wore. She is 102 almost 103 years old. Some years back Grandma Bryan sent us a letter with stories from her childhood in it. Mommy used it as our bedtime story for that night. After she finished reading, she explained to us that grandma was 96 years old. One of us piped up and said,"Wow, she must be really tall!" :) And she has been our "tall Grandma" ever since!
We love you "tall" Great-Grandma Bryan! Thank you for your prayers and godly example to all of us!

We had a great time being with family over Gramp and Daddy's birthday as well as Valentine's Day! While we were there Brittany and I went to a Valentine game night. We had a fun time of eating lots of food, playing games and laughing!

And to my wonderful Father too, For they SHARE a birthday... just not the birth-year!!! :)

Dearest Daddy, you are a wonderful father to me and are always so loving! Thanks for loving Moma and all of us! You prepared me WELL for a life of following my Man wherever God leads! I Love you much!

Happy Birthday to My Dearest Husband!!!!


Dearest Daryl How much I love you! Thanks ever to much for loving me unconditionally and for being a wonderful husband! Thanks for your Godly example and leadership to our Home! I love to watch you with our kids, you are a wonderful father too! Thanks for your quiet, consistent, godly life! I love you dearly and am excited to grow old together!

Dear Daddy,
Thank you for taking time away from your school work to play with us in the snow!
Thank you for helping us to build a snowman and taking us sledding!
You are the best Daddy in the World!
We Love you!!!!!
Love,

Darla and Bryan
Natasha and Brittany

We enjoyed getting to see the Lebanon Christmas Horse Parade with the Dickinson's and Pilmores. It was a FREEZING COLD day, so thus the reason for the heavy coats and Rudolph-like noses! It reminded us a lot of our days in Russia because of the extreme cold temperature.

Natasha enjoyed being a part of God's Bible School Christmas Musical.

For those of you who may wonder why all of the changes in the blog, I will fill you in on the details. I know this may be a shock because all of my deep intellectual insights have been and will be lacking in comparison to the light, frilly things that may take place in the future. I do hereby bequeath the insightful privilege of managing this blog to the rest of my family. Someday, I will reclaim my distinguished position as supreme commander of this blog and officially boot out my willing and subordinate subjects. Huh?

We gave our children an early Christmas present! God providentially worked it out for us to get this 2 year old Bullmastiff. Our 2 youngest didn't know that we were getting him and you can still see the delight on their faces. Ever since we had a Rottweiler in Romania, we've missed having a DAWG, not a little wimpy dog, but something worthy of the name DOG. We looked for quite some time, trying to find a Rott. but it just wasn't God's will. So we were very delighted to see how God worked things out. We've had many prayers of thanksgiving for Diesel.

Nothing pertaining to our life in this world is unimportant in the sight of God. He is interested in everything that concerns us in life. T.M. Anderson

I was recently reminded of this powerful quote:

"Holy shoddy is still shoddy." - S.D. Herron

"It is done! Over....for now anyways!"

For those of you who know what I've been doing the last 11 weeks, you know what that refers to.

Happy Birthday, Brittany!

We love you! You have always been our little bundle of "joy"! Keep Jesus 1st in every endeavor of your life and you will have TRUE Joy!




Steak N' Shake!

A family gave us some cash and told us to do something special with our family! We were able to celebrate Brittany's birthday here, thanks to coupons and kids eat free night! We don't go out much, so it's a REAL treat for all of us, not just the birthday girl!



Every Cake has it's story!

We made Brittany an ice-cream cake! Since I was given some dipping chocolate, I decided to "dip" her cake in that for the icing. I had just enough left-over white icing to come up with this concoction! Again, I'm glad for very forgiving kids when its comes to their 'original' birthday cakes! :)