Update on Ezai

I am so excited to share this with you!!! I just got an update on Ezai, one of my sweet orphans from Haiti who has cerebral palsy (CP) and went from living in the town's House of Poverty to an awesome facility in northern Haiti specially designed for kids with special needs. This time last year, I had the amazing privilege of transporting him to his new home (for more on the original story, check out my Haiti blog for the story and the trip to his new home).


Ezai is doing GREAT! He's in school and still as smilely as ever. :)

And now he's going to walk, too.


Ezai is crippled from CP. His left hand is curled up, and his left foot and ankle are contracted in such a way that it looks like he's wearing permanent 6-inch high heels. Since he cannot flex his left foot or relax his ankle, he hops to get around. Have you ever seen Veggie Tales? The best way to describe his gait is to compare it to the hopping of Bob and Larry. Cute for little singing veggies; heart-breaking for a 15 year old. 


And that's about to change.


The update from Ezai's new home is that there is an orthopedic surgeon who wants to operate on Ezai's left leg. He believes he can help reduce the pain and increase his mobility! YAY!!!!! I am amazed by God's plan and so excited for my friend.


Wouldn't it be awesome to see this smiling face WALKING towards you? :)

Great Living Social Deal!

Hi, friends!


Just a quick post especially for my friends in the Upstate!


Living social has lots of fun deals on stuff going on in your area, and the one from yesterday for the upstate is for one of our favorite restaurants! Yum!


It's a spend $10, get $20 at Brioso's. Brioso's is a delicious pasta restaurant that makes their pasta fresh daily. We especially love their lobster pasta with lobster sauce, and it's only around $10/person. De-lish! The Clemson Campus Special coupon book (I think it's on campusspecial.com too but I haven't checked yet) has a buy one entree, get one free coupon, so this living social deal plus coupon makes it $2.50/person/entree. I'm not sure if I can use the coupon, but either way it's still a great deal. Yay!!! We are some happy Lowes. :) 


Here's the link to the deal below, and if 3 of your friends buy it, it's free for you!


http://livingsocial.com/deals/133617

"If You Had One Million Dollars, What Would You Do?"

That question messed Joe Sangl up. He went on to create the financial coaching ministry at NewSpring Church. The question for him was not just considered in terms of what awesome vacations could he take or how tricked out could he make his house, but it became a musing of what he would do if money was no object or impediment. What was he put on this earth to do?


If you had a million dollars, what would you do? What were you put on this earth to do? 


Exciting, isn't it? With money being no object or impediment, why, you could do anything! Why, you could even do exactly whatever it was you've been put on this planet to do!


Those questions have kinda messed us up, too. We're getting involved with the financial counseling ministry at our awesome church, NewSpring, and are reading Joe's book I Was Broke. Now I'm Not. And we're revisiting our budget. And we're asking ourselves these questions. 


We started out our financial journey together reading The Total Money Makeover, by Dave Ramsey. It was a really good start to give us common definitions of terms to talk about our finances together, and it's a good, solid plan for healthy finances. We were both raised in families that are conservative financially, so it was a good review for us. Heehee, and we got it from the library, so we read it for free. :) Dave would be proud, right? We made a budget (David found an awesome excel sheet), and we were just living on David's stipend at the time, so I pinched pennies and started couponing! I fell in love with www.fru-gal.com, southersavers.com, and savingfreak.com. 


Then we read  Rich Dad Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki, which was cool because it gave us a very different perspective on money, spending, and saving (it also came from the library :). Before this book, I never really thought about who owned large businesses. I guess I always figured "The Man" owned it or something. But after this book,  I realized it's people who own businesses, like real people, and it made some things seem much for achievable. Also, we started to think about possibilities for investments and passive income to get out of the "rat race," which he defines as when your passive income exceeds your living expenses. When you do that, you have more freedom to choose if you want to stay at your current job, or, if you will, allows you to do what you were put on this earth to do with money being no object or impediment. 


Then we read The Blessed Life, by Robert Morris, which we absolutely LOVED. Pastor Morris spoke at our church in May, and we were so blessed by it!! It totally changed how we looked at giving, and we've been challenged by God to give at a different level than we were before. We have seen His faithfulness through that and seen how He's knitted our hearts together to give as a couple. It's so FUN to give when God tells you to, and fun how it's just a little way to show Him how thankful we are for all that Jesus has done for us on the cross. It's not about the amount you give, it's about your heart and your obedience. 


I also read a book called Think Like a Billionaire, Become a Billionaire. It's not really my favorite book nor my favorite theology (I jokingly referred to it to David as the "God wants you to be a billionaire" book), and not even available on amazon anymore, but it did spark big dreams in me. The beginning talks about what if you could meet huge needs, needs like a million Bibles for India or if your tithe was $100,000 (cuz your paycheck was $1 million, crazy, right? :). It just sparked a desire for us to dream of giving big. We would love to send a Costa Rican pastor and his family on their first vacation in 6 years. We would love to give $1 million to start a university on LaGonave, Haiti. We would love to buy the new missions base for Jerry and Carmen in Romania (my bro and his wife, check out Project 600). 


Now we're getting trained to coach at NewSpring (I <3 my church!! such great messages and great people! we love getting involved, and you can watch sermons online). We had our first "appointment" this past Sunday, where we observed a couple with years of experience as they coached another couple with their finances. It was neat to watch the couple have their worry and angst transformed into hope and joy at the prospect of paying off 3 debts completely within 6 months and the other 2 in the next 2.8 years! All this with Christmas and vacations and fun things still planned into their budget! We're so excited to be a part of this ministry and to help people be financially free! O, and it's all FREE! :) If you live in Anderson or Greenville and you're interested, I totally urge you to go! It's also in a couple of other locations in SC through NewSpring. 


We're excited to encourage people to do exactly what they were put on this earth to do. Joe Sangl is on a crusade to help people be financially free so they can do just that. His website is I Was Broke. Now I'm Not. and has lots of free resources. 


We're excited to see what God's put us on this earth to do. :) We're still praying about it and seeking guidance for each step. We're asking God to show us how to give and how to budget. We'd really like to send that pastor on vacation, and fund those missions projects. We'd like for me to have the option of being a stay at home momma (don't get excited yet, that's a ways off in the future hopefully :). We'd love to have the option for David to work with a non-profit if that's where God leads us. We'd love to have a beach house to host missionaries and to have a revolving door policy there and invite all of you anytime. :) If we had a million dollars. If money were no object or impediment. 


If you had a million dollars, what would you do? What were you put on this earth to do?

The Plan

I've always kinda had a plan. When I was in middle school, I knew I was going to college. I had no idea what I might study, but I knew I needed to go. In college, I knew I was going to grad school, again initially with no clue what I would study. When I started grad school, I knew I wanted to work in an ER. When I was working at a local ER, I knew God was calling me to Haiti for a year. During that year in Haiti, God showed me who and when to marry. Awesome! :)


All the years leading up to this one, this first year of being married to my awesome hubby, I never had plans for beyond getting married. There was nothing I had felt compelled to do (except for going to Italy and the Geneva Lindy Exchange, but that plan's in the works :), like all those other years. In one sense, it's weird for the first time in my life to not have a plan. In another sense, it's thrilling and exciting to look back and see how God gave clear direction and work to do during those years and how He's waiting to give us our next directions together as a couple. 


Which brings me to the question we've been pondering... What's the plan now? What were we put on this earth to do? We want to make Jesus smile. We want His Kingdom to be first, for us to be fruitful branches and encourage others to know Him, love Him, and serve Him, He who is Love and loved us while we were sinners separated from Him. We want to start a family. We want to encourage missionaries. We want to look like our Father. (we'd also like a beach house where said missionaries can come relax :)


But what does that look like for us on a daily basis? I feel like sometimes it was clearer on the "mission field," when I lived in Haiti. There, I loved on orphans, helped deliver food and clothes to widows and orphans, had a Bible study with orphan girls, and offered medical care to the destitute and refugees. It meant lost sleep praying for a baby not to die, lost weight with typhoid and malaria, and a lost heart when saying goodbye to Poor House friends. 


In America, I'm not even sure I know any orphans. The only widows I know are sweet older ladies from church. 


While we love international missions and look forward to investing in friends and other Kingdom workers overseas, we both feel very strongly that we are stationed States-side right now. And this is a great "mission field" (I heard the Great Comission explained once as not "go and make disciples" but rather "in your goings, make disciples"-- wherever you are, you can make disciples!). So, what does life look like for us here?


We're still figuring out what the Lord's plan for us is as a couple. My new job became available right after I started praying that God would give me a job with opportunities to share His love. Within a week, I was offered my new job in an ER, and with it came an opportunity to encourage a suicidal pastor patient and speak Creole to 3 patients, 2 of whom are from the town I lived in while in Haiti (how random and how like God :). 


We have some crazy college student neighbors... maybe they're part of the plan. Maybe my young patient who accidentally killed someone is part of plan. Maybe our involvement with financial coaching at our church (more to come in another post-- we're super excited) is part of the plan. Maybe sharing a Blessing Bag (thanks, Kelly!) with the homeless man I pass every day on my way to work is part of the plan.


Part of the Plan to share His love and offer of abundant and eternal life with the world. 


Not such a bad plan to have. :)

Oktoberfest in a Crockpot

... minus the beer. :) This is my easy, crockpot tribute to Oktoberfest! Makes a great, easy fall dinner that even my hubby who doesn't like cabbage enjoys!


Sausage with Cabbage and Potatoes


2-3 large baking potatoes
1 Tb. melted butter
Dash of salt and pepper
1/4 tsp. thyme
1/4 of a cabbage, cut into bite-size chunks
4 links smoked sausage (we used Hillshire Farms Sausage with Wisconsin Cheddar-yum!)
3 green onions, sliced thin
2 Tb. maple syrup
1/4 cup water
1 tsp. vinegar (I used rice vinegar since I'm allergic to grapes, but I'm sure white or apple cider vinegar would be awesome too)


Slice potatoes thinly and place at bottom of a crock pot coated with non-stick cooking spray. Drizzle with butter, salt and pepper, and thyme. Arrange cabbage, onions, and sausage on top of potatoes and drizzle with the rest of the ingredients. Turn on high and cook about 3 hours or until potatoes are soft and sausage looks done. Serves 2 very hungry people if made with 3 potatoes. :)

Easy Italian Chicken

Easy Italian Chicken


To start with, here's one of my favorite recipes! It's a recipe that I got from a friend years ago and modified slightly. It's also the recipe my mom likes so much that she requested it yesterday when we celebrated her birthday!


1 pound skinless boneless chicken breast, cut into chunks
1/2 cup Italian dressing
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup fresh mozzarella cut in small pieces
4-6 medium potatoes cut into small chunks


Place chicken in crockpot and sprinkle with half of the dressing, spices, and cheeses. Put potatoes in around the chicken and cover with the rest of the dressing, spices, and cheeses. Cook on high for 3 hours stirring occasionally, or on low for 6-8 hours, until everything is cooked. YUM!!! The dressing and cheeses meld together into a delightful covering for everything. 

Delicious Green Beans

Delicious Garlic Parmesan Green Beans


Here's a delightful version of green beans that I just made up tonight. Hope you like it too!


1/2 pound frozen green beans
Dash of garlic salt
Dash of dried Parmesan cheese 
1 tsp. olive oil


Place ingredients in a small saucepan and cook on medium-high, stirring frequently, until cheese starts to melt and green beans are cooked. Serves 2.