wait quietly

Trust and wait are still my theme words for this season and I get excited when I see that God has provided me with a new resource to consider more deeply these words and their application in my life. Currently the sermon series at church is on the Psalms. The Psalm writers often talk about trusting in the Lord and waiting on Him, so it's no surprise that the sermons preached on Psalm 78 and Psalm 23 touched on these topics. I was challenged to consider some familiar words of scripture in new ways and encouraged by the Truth that our Heavenly Father is completely worthing of my trusting and waiting. He is in fact a very good Shepherd. If  you would like to listen to either sermon, go here.

Each morning in my inbox is a daily devotional written by Elisabeth Elliot. Ms. Elliot has been one of my favorite Christian writers since high school. She's real and honest about her walk with the Lord, her own struggles, and the truth of God's Word. God has used her books and devotionals to teach me so much about His love and what it means to be a woman of God. This is what she challenged me with recently...

Wait Quietly

Few of us enjoy having to wait for something we want. It is human nature to desire instant gratification, and it is divine nature to do many things very, very slowly. Growth is always imperceptible. But the farmer exercises long patience in waiting for his crop. He has done his work and is assured of the result, hence he waits quietly. He is at rest because the outcome (barring disastrous "acts of God") is certain. If we could simply remember that this is true of everything--that God's purposes are slowly being worked out for his glory and our good--we would, like the farmer, keep faith and wait quietly.


Lord, take from us all fretting and hurrying and teach us to rest our hearts in the "ultimate certainty" (Jas 5:7 JBP). 
 
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: A Lamp For My Feet

Scripture Reference: James 5:7

What is God asking you to wait quietly for?

Welcome to the Rainy Season

As I was working on posts last week I came across this one, patiently waiting in a state of "draft" since March. Wow. Has it really been 3 months since my trip to Kenya? This year is moving by much too quickly! Finding this post made me realize that I kind of failed at documenting our trip. Oh well. Maybe I'll get around to getting the rest of the stories up. Maybe. Let's not get our hopes up. This post, however, does document a pretty notable day--the one where we all got soaked. Enjoy reminiscing with me!

Hell's Gate National Park
Monday, March 14

After the lake tour and walking safari we headed to the lodge to check in, eat lunch, and change into shorts for our tour of Hell’s Gate National Park. Just before the entrance to the park, we stopped at little shop and each paid 500 ksh to rent bikes that we would ride into and through the park! We had been planning this part of the trip since the beginning and we were pretty excited. The excitement, however, dwindled slightly as I struggled to ride my well-worn bike uphill to the park entrance. I would like to blame some of the challenge to the high altitude, but it was also due in part to the misappropriate gear that my bike was stuck in. At the gate, while I was seriously reconsidering this whole “bike through the park” plan, Eustace got my gears adjusted and I felt a little better about it all. (It turns out that each one of us was wondering at that point if we should have just ridden in the van rather than taking the bikes, but we stuck it out.) Hell’s Gate is a beautiful park and it was fun just ride the dirt roads and see zebra and gazelles as I went.

Our destination for our biking tour was the gorge in Hell’s Gate where there is a fabulous view of the area. As we approached the entrance to the gorge, a herd of cape buffalo decided that would a good time to cross the road—and they took their time doing so. Cape buffalo are massive animals and can be fierce (and charge) if you get too close. So, we kept our distance. As we waited for them to cross, the rain that had recently started as a sprinkle began to pick up. As our time at the park was running out, it became clear that the rain wasn’t stopping anytime soon and the buffalo weren’t going to move out of our way.

Enjoying the ride and the view -- before the rain!

We decided to forgo the gorge and ride back to the entrance to the park. Just minutes into our return ride the thunder started and then the downpour and then the hail! As pea sized hail began pelting our arms and legs and faces, we pulled over to the side of the road and took cover under a tree (or tried too). The trees in the park weren’t made for rain cover! As we huddled together in the cold rain (so cold!) we couldn’t help but laugh together—what an adventure our bike ride through the park had become!

We were very, very cold. But still managed to smile!

Unfortunately, the storm was just beginning. We stood under that leafless tree for probably half an hour before deciding that enough of the storm had passed over us and we had to just ride back. So, we did. The rain kept pouring down and the hail kept stinging our legs, but we pressed on. As we reached the entrance to the park, the storm let up. Our driver started laughing when we saw us all soaking wet and exhausted—they didn’t have any rain at the gate or any idea that a storm had gone through the park! While we never ended up seeing the beautiful gorge of Hell’s Gate, we definitely had a memorable experience and we have a great story to tell! (We look forward to seeing Rose’s pictures of the gorge, from a previous visit, at a later date.)

Shivering, we rode back to the lodge in the warm van and then took some much needed showers. Clean and warmer, we ate a lovely dinner (the first of many international buffets) and then went to bed quite early. We had a very tiring day!

Our hotel room: four rooms are inside these Africa meets England cottages.

Classic tourist photo in front of the lodge.

Pure Joy

Jubilee is a time of rejoicing and celebration. Kate means pure.

Jubilee Kate McNeilly was born at 7:46 a.m. on June 22, 2011 to proud parents: Dani (my little sister) and Alex McNeilly. She weighed a healthy 8 lbs 11 oz. Not anywhere close to her aunt, uncle, and mommy in weight, but she was right on time (and we were all at least 2 weeks late!).

My dad picked me up from work yesterday afternoon and we drove down to Bloomington together. My mom and Alex's mom (the two Nana's!) had been at the hospital since the early morning. Little Jubilee had to spend her first day in the nursery as she had a little meconium in her lungs. She was on oxygen and monitors, but by this morning she was free from the machine and with her mommy and daddy!

I had the privilege of being one of the first people to hold her! And photograph her! I took just a few (well, over 100) pictures and here are some of my favorites...

She is

Pure

Joy.



Happy every-holiday-for-the-next-year to me!

Friday, June 17, 2011 was a special day. Yes, it was my parents' 33rd wedding anniversary. And my friends Kristen and Roger's 5th anniversary. (It's hard to believe that it's been five years since I flew home from Italy for a week to be in their wedding!)

Five years ago was also probably the time that I stopped using one of my best high school graduation gifts (yes, from 2000): my Pentax 35mm SLR camera. It used film. (This my be foreign subject matter for people born after the mid-1990s.) I was SO excited about that camera. I still love it. And, even though it's basically worth nothing (and it's too expensive to use it/develop film), I can't bring myself even try and sell it--or give it away. But maybe someday my kids will take photography class at school, and maybe, just maybe, they will have an old-school teacher who will make them use 35mm cameras and film. And then, they will be so excited to use their mom's old camera. Right? I mean, that was me back in 1998. I got to learn with my mom's Canon. sigh.

I've gotten off track.

This past Friday was a special day because I bought a present for myself; a present that brings me quite up to date with current photographic technology. I am now the proud owner of a Digital SLR camera. It's beautiful. It's fast. It's shiny and new. I love the sound of the shutter when I press the release. I love the quality of the images. I love holding the camera up to my eye--like I'm using my mom's old Canon, or my old Pentax! It even takes video. I'm clearly in a new league. I've been researching DSLRs forever. I wavered over the Nikon v. Canon decision. (I went with Nikon. Mostly because I like how the camera felt in my hands.) I did the math and, well, I did the math. This is not cheap present.

So why now? Why did I leave work a little early on Friday and go to the camera store downtown (where the salesman probably thought I was a little bit crazy) and walk out less than an hour later with a new camera? Well, the timing was greatly motivated by the quickly approaching birth of my new niece. She is due any day now (maybe tonight!) and she really needs to be well-photographed! I mean, she is going to be super cute. My almost 2 year old niece, Mia, and her little brother (coming in September) give me even more inspiration to take our family memory keeping to the next level.

There will be many photos making their way to the blog. I started using Picnik to edit and play and I'm having way too much fun. And I've been carrying my camera almost everywhere I go...in the cutest camera bag ever! It's called "The Bowler" and its sporty-ness has produced comments such as "Cute purse!"...from men! I'm almost positive that I've never had a guy compliment my purse (or undercover camera bag) as "cute" or at all. Love it.