This week they are finally repaving the major road in front of our neighborhood. It is a blessing and a curse. I no longer feel like I’m off roading in the mule when I come home. I have to go three (or more) miles out of my way to cross the street. It is aggravating, especially consider my schedule.

Here are just a few things that I’ve done for the PTA this week

• picked up and wrapped with a bow and a card that I had to cut out 70 muffins and fruit cups
• put orange peanuts in 70 bags with 70 stickers and delivered them to the school
• made and tied cards to 70 hand soaps and drug them up the hill to the library
• picked up a cake and delivered it to the workroom
• tied 70 cards on 70 2-liter bottles of Pepsi

Today I will wag those 70 bottles up a hill to the library, hopefully with a little help. Tomorrow with some help, I’ll serve the teachers lunch. I have 140 cookies to make tonight after piano. Somehow I’m supposed to be at a party at Hickam Beach in the afternoon and back at the school to pick up the kids at 2. Seriously. Plus, all the roadwork making me go around to get back at forth. I’m going a bit nuts. All I can say is this week, my big girls have been a huge blessing. They’ve helped tie and cut and wag and anything I asked. Ray was even stuffing muffins in bags. It’s a team effort around here these days! 

This week I was asked if I’m always that color. Really. My answer, no. I haven’t found my aloha in over three weeks. At the end of the summer, I’ll be the color of a coconut. I was told it’s good I’m not too bright white. Love this island! 

I had to explain why my tweens shouldn’t say 69 is their favorite number. Let’s just say I was a vague as I could possibly be. (I’ll explain it to you in those terms later mom.)

My head is wrapped up around the book I mentioned here. It’s obviously been a long time since I’ve done and in depth study. I hope someone reading this picks it up because there is so much to talk about, my brain is hurting.

I haven’t mailed mother’s day gifts yet. I’m a slacker! 

The BIG HUGE OVER THE TOP piano recital is this weekend. Ray needs to smoke meat for his party and the recital. 

Jack missed school for his doctor’s appointment. He’ll miss school today because it’s water play day. In the middle of all this, I’m not getting ANYTHING done.

I better go. You’ll find me on the road to crazy.

I’m starting to feel like Jack’s eyes have taken over… this blog, our calendars, every day activities. I know it’s a short season and it will pass, but man no water is hard when you have a boy living on an island with a pool across the street. Bathing is a nightmare. Cream in his eyes four times a day and patching for six hours a day is taking it’s toll on both of us. I was hoping for some spectacular news… 

We did get some news. His eyes are healing, just ever so slowly… ever so freaking slowly. Jack is still at risk for infection. I’m trying to remember that we have skated through a major surgery with no infection…a huge blessing… instead of focusing on how SLOW the recovery is. I’m was praying about it this morning and realized his surgery moving up was a HUGE blessing. If we had to deal with no water through summer break I’m quite certain I would LOSE MY MIND. I’m trying to be thankful for the little things…clearly trying is the operative word these days. Actually I know we are extremely blessed that Jack’s surgery went as well as it did with no true set backs. 

Jack’s eyes were stronger this week. Patching has helped and our cool new patches finally arrived via amazon…

We have a whole host of boy patches to choose from that won’t curl around the ends. Even better…Dr. Young released us to two hours a day! That means no patch at school. The six hours were killing Jack. He doesn’t fuss about the patch or try to pull it off, but he is grumpier. His teacher can’t really decipher his communication style yet. She told me the other day he wanted his eye cream. I had no idea why he would say that, we call it medicine. In his grumpy moments, Jack has started yelling “I want ice cream!” If you saw Jack rolling around in the street of China screaming his full head off because I tried to give him a bit of my ice cream cone you would understand how funny we find this. He has become his father’s son asking for ice cream multiple times daily and not just when he’s mad. Anyway at two hours, we can easily do that at home and hope our boy is a happy camper at school.

Jack’s right eye is still turning in. It’s not bad. The patch has really helped speed up the healing process in that eye. His left eye is still rolling up. The patch is helping strengthen that eye. It was hard to know which eye to patch now. They both need a little help. The doctor finally decided to continue only with the right eye for now. We’ll just be back and forth to his office a little more in the coming months to make sure we’re getting it right. It’s all good. The valet staff totally knows us now and our schedule. I think I’m the crazy haole that tips. 

Even though we are under strict no water orders, I’m a little bit stir crazy and all the kids are too…even the four legged one. Last night, I grabbed Ray from his office, we picked up some dinner and had a picnic at Dog Beach. No water or sand reached eyes. We were careful and I was able to recharge a little aloha for my Mama heart. 

We have recitals this weekend but I see Bellows in our near future!

This weekend Ray and I got a night out at Toby Keith’s 198th USO show in eleven years. This guy’s schedule is nuts! He finished his eleventh USO tour with show number 200 on our little island. 

We went prepared…

Yes, I brought in two empty Red Solo Cups. I am still a little scarred from hitting a Bare Naked Ladies concert without a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese. I was not going to miss a chance to salute Mr. Keith by raising a Red Solo Cup. 

The show was totally free, first come, first serve. For free and getting there a bit later than we intended, we had some pretty sweet seats. Our view was amazing.

Who can beat Palm Trees and ships in the background? It got a bit more crowded as we waited for the show to start. A crowd makes it fun though. I love people watching. There were a few having a REALLY GOOD TIME.

It was a great night with Mr. Keith and my sailor.

It’s not often we hear about concerts here, even concerts that aren’t free. Big names don’t typically pay to get their sets sent here. The logistics must be a nightmare. Toby Keith came out and put on a nonstop show. He was absolutely fabulous. He had another show earlier on another island and did two more while he was here. I can’t thank him enough for all the love and support he sends to the troops and their families. Toby Keith, I salute you! 

There has been something lacking for me spiritually since we moved to our little island. I think I alluded to it after a couple of months here. At some point I got into that “it is what it is” mode that I typically detest. If I can do something about it, I should. Then my friend Stefanie from Ni Hao Y’all offered to host a Bible study on her site. I jumped on the offer. We’ll be studying Timothy Keller’s book, “The Reason For God.” As part of the study, I’ll be posting here weekly about what we are discussing. I’ll be linking up with other people who are also participating in the study. If you want to read what they have to say, feel free to click the button at the bottom of the post.

In this book Keller suggests that his reader, whether Christian or skeptic, consider their own doubts and the doubts of others. He goes so far as to say that your faith can be found there. Stefanie does a much better job of providing a synopsis here. The first question asked of study participants is 

Question: Can you relate to what Keller says about the need for Christians to dissect their personal and cultural doubts? If so, what are your most pervasive doubts? If not, to what do you attribute your confidence?

Cultural doubts? Absolutely. I think my last post is a big example. I’d like to thank Sophelia for carrying on the conversation so that I can dissect and examine my beliefs about religious freedoms in the military. Another example is a conversation I had with another friend. We disagree on something that I see as a Biblical truth even though we attend the same type of church. His heels are dug in and so are mine. How can two people who read the same Bible and attend the same type of church service be at opposite ends of a spectrum? What I see as black and white, he sees as gray. These cultural doubts should be examined so you know where you stand. In some cases, there are things that some see as cultural issues and other see as salvation issues. Especially in these situations, I think that we should be praying and examining what God actually wants of us. 

Personal doubts? Off the cuff I would probably say my faith is strong. My doubts about God have come in difficult times. How could He let this happen? At other times I wonder why my aren’t prayers answered, I’m praying for good things, things for His glory. Does He care? I’ve been blessed that in my times of doubt, I’ve come out on the other side with my faith not just in tact but stronger. If I’m honest with myself, I still have moments of fleeting doubt. I’m sure through this study, more may bubble to the surface. 

Overall, I’m very excited to start this study. I want to feel part of a discussion again. Teaching Sunday School and wrangling kids, I’m looking forward to digging in studying and discussing these difficult subjects. If you’d like to join me, I’d love to have your comments here. 

For those of you who don’t know us well, Ray has been in the military for 19 years. We were dating when he signed that dotted line. We’ll have been married for 18 years in a couple of weeks. I think for the most part, we love our military life. We are like gypsies. I know that we’ve seen and experienced things that we never would have if hadn’t signed on. Over the years we debated, stay or go. About 8 years ago we crossed that threshold. Hold on… even it gets bumpy we are going to do the twenty. Has it always been rainbows and sunshine? No. At yet, no other life we could choose would be. I know Ray loves what he does and he loves serving his country. Life outside of our tightly knit military community scares the dickens out of me a bit. Today I read something that made me cringe. It made me wonder where we are headed. It made me think that at twenty years, it might be time to walk away.

You see, it seems that a well known anti-Christian extremist, Michael Weinstein has set his sights on the military. Before I point you in the direction of the article about what Mr. Weinstein’s vision for our military is and tell you what our President’s civilian appointees at the Pentagon are considering, let me tell you a few things.

My father died of a massive heart attack on the night before Ray was supposed to start a six month deployment on the USS Eisenhower. I had a week with my mother and my brother. I went back to Virginia and kissed my husband good bye. My father died when he was 50, far too young. I thought I might be pregnant. One week after Ray left, the doctor said it was probably a very early miscarriage. My father was gone. My husband was deployed. I had recently started a new job. I was suffering and immeasurable amount of grief. If you had asked me then or even asked me today how on earth I got through that the answer would be easy. It was my faith in God. It was the support of my church family and the belief in something greater. I found peace in my prayers.

My husband was in Iraq. He was in Fallujah. I had a two-year old and a three-year old at home. I spent 6 months wondering if my girls would see their Daddy again. I knew exactly where he was. While I thought I knew the worst of his danger, I didn’t. What I did know was bad. It was a long hard six months. If you asked me how I did it, I would say, “It’s not me. It’s God.”

About three months after Ray returned home, I had a very real miscarriage. There was no second guessing with the doctors this time. It was early. It was bad and the pregnancy was unexpected. I felt grief. I thought it might swallow me. I couldn’t understand how or why or what purpose. I distinctly remember sitting on the edge of the tub with Arleigh and Hanan in the bath and praying and asking why. I promise you peace washed over me. I just knew that it was trial I needed to go through, maybe for my girls one day, maybe for me. Again, it was God.

We were blessed to ride along with life until we lost Jessa. I would be lying if I said I had days when I didn’t ache to hear her running with her sisters and her brother. I was mad for a very long time. I was disappointed. Again, if you asked me what brought me through it I would tell you that my faith drug me up by the bootstraps. Through prayer and meditation, and with the help of my family and my church family I came out of it. It was God.

Ray and I couldn’t have through the ups and downs of the adoption process if we didn’t believe. We couldn’t have said yes to a special needs child. We wouldn’t have been blessed to be walking a road with Jack and cheering like crazy at all his milestones. Without God, we wouldn’t have Jack and all the blessings that come wrapped up with him. We needed God to push us up the mountains and to hold on to us to keep us from rolling off. When we were in China and Jack could barely walk and we wondered what would happen next, God was right there with us.

I am not through with walking my steps of grief over any of the people I’ve lost, especially Tye as the wounds are so fresh. I know that I can take another step because I know God is with me. I know there is a promise of better things to come. It’s faith that gets me out of the bed in the morning…and kids that God gave me jumping on my head.

Those are just a very few life experiences. I didn’t list every birth, every triumph, every failure where we had to pick ourselves up or every victory. At any of those moments, I would tell you it’s because of God.

There have been very real situations where I’ve talked with people who have lost a child, miscarried, lost a parent, a sibling, even my own mother. When you are looking for answers, I have one. It’s remember your faith. Shore it up. In fact, if you are living an extremely blessed life right now, that’s even more reason to shore it up. Look to God. Take one step, and then another. Lean into Him. It is the only way that I get through any thing hard. Somedays, even boot camp.

Now that I’ve told you all that. Please know that our military members may no longer be able to share what God has done for them. They could face court martial for doing so. Some will say there is a difference between testimony and proselytizing. I say the definition of proselytizing as set forth in new Air Force documents doesn’t agree with you. Mr. Weinstein believes that even chaplains who share the gospel of Jesus Christ are guilty of “treason.” Obama’s civilian appointees in the pentagon have confirmed that it will be a crime for military members to share their faith while in uniform. My husband may very well become Daniel, thrown to the lion’s den.

I don’t typically spout off on political matters on this blog. This is important. Weinstein has called our chaplains “enemies of the Constitution.” I say to remember what we have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion per our Constitution. If we don’t speak up and stand together, what will happen?

For the military families who read these blogs, what would your life be like without chaplains? They’ve held my hand. They’ve prayed with me and for me. They are counselors in a time of war and death. Their hands are being tied. I remember asking the chaplain in Iceland questions I had and he could answer freely what he believed the Bible said. Will you stand up for them?

If you want more information, here is the link to the original article

Pentagon May Court Martial Soldiers Who Share Christian Faith

I wish I had time to put 100 pictures on here and tell you exactly what’s going on and how we’re feeling. The fact is, today is Lei Day… Friday the school celebrates May Day and Jack is going back to school this morning. God is good!

Now, for the long and short of it. Jack’s right eye was over corrected during the surgery. It is not horribly noticeable. It’s better than it was. Still, it’s not landing where is should most of the time. We knew this was a concern. I was afraid for Jack over it. The over correction isn’t as bad as it could have been and we’re just going to have to deal with it. His right eye is also not healing quickly. Those stitches must have really come loose. It’s a problem. Jack’s left eye lands where it should land most of the time but he still doesn’t have total control. It can randomly float up. This is what we were trying to correct. It hasn’t been a week yet. Sometimes it takes up to two weeks for your brain to really figure out how to control the muscle but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

What’s next? Jack will continue with his arm restraints at least at night and as needed during the day until both eyes are healed. Jack has been totally fine with the restraints. He’s been a trooper with them. We’re happy it gets a bit of a break from them every now and then, but we are okay with them if that’s what it takes to prevent infection. Jack will also have wear a patch over his right eye for at least 6 hours a day. This will serve two purposes. We need to give it time to heal, and the left eye really needs to be stronger.

That’s the long and the short of it. It would have been nice to get everything totally perfect on the first go, but we knew the realities of the procedure. We’re rolling with it. Plus, as Ray says…all Jack’s dreams are coming true. With peg arms and one eye, he really will be a pirate!