'Tis the Season

'Tis the season for..........stress and financial woes?  I really hope you are not one of the many Americans that fall into this category this Christmas season.

If I am being honest with myself (and the one or two people that may be reading this!) it is hard not to fall into this category each December.  I have felt so convicted lately though, every time I even think of letting myself have a little pity party.

I could let myself worry about how our electric bill will be paid next week given the fact that my husband has not been able to get any part time work for over 3 weeks and we heavily depend on this each month.  I could let myself worry about where money will come for Christmas presents.  I could even let myself worry about where the last of our money needed for the trip will come from.

BUT  each time I even begin to let one of those selfish worries creep into my brain I am reminded about the NUMEROUS blessings I have received.  Blessings that should be consuming my each and every thought this Christmas season.

When I think of even how our Lord came into this world, how can I possibly complain for one second?  As a mother, the birth story of Jesus has taken on a completely different meaning to me.  I can't imagine traveling by foot or donkey in my last trimester......in the cold......giving birth in essentially a barn......with NO pain medication.  What a miracle we were given that we all too often so easily overlook.

During this Christmas season I hope and pray that I will continue to focus on this miracle.  To focus on ALL the many, many blessings that my family has and how unworthy I am of even one of them.  I pray that I will remember to truly focus on the meaning and reason of why we celebrate Christmas and not let any selfish worrying take away from that at all.

I hope you will be able to do the same.

I Cor. 1:5 "For in Him you have been enriched in every way...."

For me.......' Tis the season for miracles, the gift of our Saviour's birth, cherished time spent with family, incredible friends, a warm place to rest my head and a house to protect my family each night, food to eat, and too many blessings to even count.

Baby Juddah from Ethiopia

Here is a very sick little boy in Ethiopia that could really use our prayers right now, and also for his twin sister, Sarah. You can read about his story and follow his progress at http://babyjuddah.blogspot.com/

The Joys of Getting 4 kids to Smile!!!

We decided it was time to have some new family pictures taken.  Thank GOODNESS one of my best friends is a photographer or I would possibly have no photos to look back on.  Jessica has been there to help us capture so many memories and I don't know what I would do without her.  

She has also helped us tremendously with our fundraising efforts for our Uganda trip by donating gift cards towards her photography services, that we could sell and apply towards the trip.  She is pretty much all around awesome!  

Anyway, here are some pictures that we did last weekend.  Considering we had to wake all 4 up from naps, I think they turned out amazingly.  Jessica has such a knack for capturing their personalities.  If you are in the Bryan/College Station or surrounding areas, I highly recommend her.  www.jessicaklimaphotography.com

Our sweet 6yr old, Karson

Our ridiculously goofy 4yr old, Everett

Hadlee, our 2yr old, is the perfect combo of princess & tomboy

And our always smiling, sweet 9m old, Pierce

Brotherly Love.  This shot was their idea!

My babies that are getting too big too fast!

The idea was to have everyone standing, but Hadlee was NOT having that!

An imperfect person

We are all imperfect people.  I know that.  Sometimes I feel though that I fall into this category too often and I wonder how or why God chooses to still love me.  How does He continue to have patience for me even when I continue to doubt or be fearful or let myself feel stressed instead of blessed?

Jason and I have been called to the mission field.  We know this.  God has reaffirmed this in so many ways already and yet, I continue to doubt.  I continue to be fearful of the unknown and what the future holds for us.  Why?  Because I am an imperfect person.

God continues to be so faithful to us though and just when I start letting doubts, fears, uncertainties creep into my mind, He is so patient with me and shows me yet again that this is His will for us.

God has so often been speaking to me through His word lately.  Today He so clearly did again.  After a night of the above mentioned doubts and fears, I have felt His presence so much today.  I have felt a warmth and assurance in His perfect timing.  My time in the word was no different.

I opened up to the passage in John 14 where Jesus is comforting His disciples.  They keep asking him about the Father and how will they know.  You can almost sense Jesus wanting to just say "Seriously!!!  How many times do we have to go over this?"  v6"I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me"

I feel like I can picture God being that way with me.  How many times or in how many ways does He have to show me that this is His will for my life before I quit doubting or being fearful?  He is with us, the Holy Spirit is with us to "teach us all things and remind us of everything He has said to us"

v27 "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid"

Today I choose to rest in this peace!  To stop doubting or feeling overwhelmed or worrying about funds for the trip or what the future holds for us long term in the mission field.  Today I rest in His PEACE"

I wanted to leave you with a quick picture of the kiddos this past Halloween which also happens to be Karson's bday.

Praise Report

In the last 10 days we have raised over $3000 towards our trip.  All praise goes to God because I could never have imagined something that big happening and definitely could not have done it on our own will.

Thank you to everyone who has prayed for us, supported us, and just had an encouraging word for us over these past two weeks.  It has meant everything to us.

We are still only about half way to where we need to be so please keep helping spread the word about what we are trying to do.  We appreciate it so much.  A great way is to share this blog with friends and family and have them follow us.

Can't wait to update you again on all the amazing things that God is doing in our lives to make this dream of missions a reality for us.

Meet the Segners!

I realized that some who are reading this might not really know us very well so I wanted to introduce you to my family.

Jason and I have been married for 9yrs, this past Oct 13th.  He is my best friend and I can't imagine being bold enough to do something like a mission trip to Africa without him.  I thank God everyday for having him in my life.

Our oldest daughter, Faith, is with her heavenly father and we can't wait until the day when we get to see her again.

Karson is our Halloween baby and will be 6 this year.  He is such an incredible helper and big brother and seems to be wise beyond his years!

Next is Everett, who just turned 4.  He shares a middle name with my dad and it is so appropriate because he is as silly or sillier than my dad was.  They would have had a blast together if they had been able to meet.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!  In one, he is telling his new baby cousin, Isaac, all about what he will teach him.....get ready Heather!

Next is Hadlee, our tomboy princess!  I never knew how much I wanted a girl until we were blessed with her.  I think of her as my little SweetTart because she is the perfect combination of sweet and sassy and probably our toughest kid!  She is also my little mini-me and loves to follow me and do everything I do. (I never realized how much I used my pointer finger in disciplining until I saw her always pointing at her brothers and sending them to their room.  Oops!)

And last, but certainly not least, is our sweet, sweet Pierce, who will be one in Feb.  He is an unbelievably happy baby and proof that God never gives us more than we can handle.  He was our little surprise, even after we thought our hands were as full as they could get for the moment, but we can't imagine life without his sweet, always present, smile.

Standing in the way of Him

We are currently reading Francis Chan's Crazy Love for our home group right now.  A book that I HIGHLY recommend if you have not had a chance to check it out yet.  Anyway, in one chapter he talks about how seldom we think of actually being in the presence of God when we pray, even though that is exactly what we are doing, going before Him.

To help with this recently, before my prayer time I close my eyes and have been trying to get a mental picture of actually going before what I think God might look like.  In my mind, I picture entering a doorway to this HUGE room.  So large in fact that there really isn't walls.  God in my mind is almost like looking at the sun.  Just this large brightness that you just instantly kneel down before.  I picture angels standing behind Him.  Now, I never claimed to know anything close to what this moment would really look like for us.  I just wanted to give you a picture of what it is in my mind.

This morning though, when I was imagining all of this before praying, something happened.  I couldn't get the image of so many people crowding behind me, waiting for their turn to go through the doors.  I kept seeing myself standing in the doorway and, being a rather tall person, all of God's light and glory was being blocked to those standing behind me.  However, when I bowed down before Him, His light and the full impact of who He was, was able to shine past me to the people waiting.  Only then could they truly see Him.......when I got out of the way.

I kept trying to get these people out of my mind and get back to the praying that I was trying to do, but there they were.

Finally I realized what I was supposed to be seeing here.  What a great reminder of how we can get in the way of others truly seeing God's glory and all that it is.  We so often get full of ourselves, or don't live our lives as He has called us to live and others may only receive small glimpses of His kingdom.  It is only when we bow down, humbly before him that His light can shine through us.