I found the cutest site for Saying and Phrases to use for Embroidery and Personalization!

http://allthingsthirtyone.blogspot.com/p/embroidery-ideas.html?showComment=1385136250344

It's a site run by a Thirty One Consultant and I think she is brilliant!!!

NCAA Men's Basketball Bracket!!

How to Peel a Kiwi Easily

I found this because Miss Grace loves Kiwi and I didn't have a clue how to peel a kiwi!!

http://steamykitchen.com/1692-how-to-peel-and-cut-kiwi-fruit.html

There is a video that shows how to cut both ends off and use a spoon!!! Took 20 seconds!!!

Doowop.com is offering 20 Discs for $55! It's a great deal, so spread the news!!

Doowop.com 20 Discs for $55

Welcome Fletcher: Elf on Our Shelf

This year we had the delightful surprise of an Elf on a Shelf coming to stay with us. Thomas and Grace, Sam, Mom, Gannie, Dad, Pop, and Grammy have all worked together to pick a name, but the final selection was Thomas and Grace's. They picked "Fletcher".

FCA MotoCross: Faster for the Master

The only sound was the whispered anticipation from the crowd. The roar of the dirt bikes had faded off momentarily as Ryan's bike, which was barely functional at this point, had disappeared around the corner and behind the last jump. The other two riders had gone several seconds beforehand, but had never popped back up, over the table top, to win the race.

The flagger, holding the checkered flag that would end of the race, and show who had won, stood at the crest of the Table Top. He looked down over the blind side of the hill, and we waited. What could he see? What was happening? Why hadn't Shawn or Jimmy soared over the last jump and ended the race?

Just then, he straightened and tensed. The sound of 3 loud engines buzzed to life. A cloud of dust proceeded the racers. Then, in perfect unison, all three bikes came over the rise together! Side by side!

Shawn and Jimmy, realizing Ryan's bike had broken and that it was all he could do just to finish the race, much less actually compete, had stopped at the very end of the run to that last jump, and waited for him. Who knows what may have transpired between the three when Ryan came around the corner and found them sitting there! They finished together. No winners! All winners!

The crowd of MotoCross fans, American, Honduran, riders, kids, and adults went crazy! That was so amazing!!! A perfect end to an incredible week of camp and racing! 

But it can't all be Stellar Jumps, Autographs and Movie-Made-Moments. This trip started months ago, with patience, fundraising, and phone calls. Emails back and forth between missionaries, translators, and dirk bike riders. FCA, FPCC, and OEM. But I won't go back that far. Let's just glance back over one week. The first ever FCA MotoCross Camp held Internationally. An effort motivated by a shared love and respect for Dylan First, whose dream we were chasing. One week, in Honduras.

We arrived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras on Sept. 22, 2012. The first two days we spent adjusting to the climate (hot but beautiful) and attending a Sunday evening church service. This was one of the most exciting parts of the trip. In a church service, 1666.8  miles from here, Ryan, a professional MotoCross Rider and FCA-Camp-Instructor-To-Be, accepted Jesus Christ into his heart for the first time! God had answered our prayers on day one. Many of us felt successful and whatever else happened was just extra!!

The next several days we visited lots of Malls, TV Stations, Universities, and schools. The Pros signed autographs and we gave out FCA stickers and posters. We talked about Dylan First, and his passion for MotoCross and his love of Jesus Christ. We talked about the race and that it was free. (No one could understand this!) And we got used to speaking through an interpreter. We went shopping for family at home, and God used this as an opportunity for Shawn and Courtney to witness to a little boy outside of a shop. He prayed and accepted Christ, there in the street.

Several of us visited a Foster Care home called House of Hope on Tuesday. We got the chance to deliver LOTS of suitcases full of clothes, costumes, and toys to the girls there. They are ages 4 months-11 yrs old. They melted our hearts. Then we left there and went to a "school" which is a concrete building with no doors or glass, in the windows. They had wooden desks, but not one other thing in the room. Not even paper or pencils. We gave the kids backpacks that Forestpark kids made during VBS this year. They were FULL of paper, pencils, toothbrushes, candy, toys, etc, etc. Courtney told them the gospel using an EvangeCube, and asked them to pray. 12 kids told us it was the first time they had prayed to ask Jesus into their hearts!

Finally, Wednesday came. At 11am we began signing riders up and sending them to find their bunk house. We all met for lunch and headed to camp. The next 2 days were spent on that track. In fact Thursday we didn't even leave the track for lunch! They brought it in! 

The campers were separated into Huddles ("Juntos") with one of our team serving as "Huddle Leaders" in each group. They stayed in their Huddle for the entire camp. Each Huddle stayed in a certain zone (area of the track,) learning an aspect of dirt bike riding, such as starting, cornering, hills/jumps, etc. Then after about an hour they rotated to another zone.

The first night of camp, we played a game, then held a simple chapel time together. We had nearly every person in the camp come forward to pray and give their lives to the Lord. The second night, I think all the rest of them came forward and did the same. Plus, all the people from the first night, came back up to say, "what's the second step?" There may have been one or two who didn't step up, but when almost ALL 27 people at camp want to know more, it's a raging success by anyone's standards!

Friday morning they got another hour on the track, and then we had awards and certificates to hand out. They all asked us to please come back next year! We had the rest of the day off, so some of us (Sunday School Teachers...) went off to give out more backpacks to another school! We had at least 5 or 6 raise their hands this time that they had made a commitment for the first time, but it was hard to tell, because the teacher began saying "Put your hand up! Put your hand up!" Which of course they all did. Oh well. :-)

Saturday was a quiet day with the track being set up for the races and practice runs going on! Then came race day! Sunday, the track was packed!! We held the first race, for 12-14-year-olds. After that, they stopped everything to let Matthew First ride around the track alone on a Hot Lap, in honor of his brother, Dylan. Shawn Clark and a translator explained to the crowd who Dylan was, and what his dream had been. He told them that this whole trip was because of Dylan. He explained who Jesus is, and that Dylan's life was devoted to Jesus. He told them the gospel, and led them in a short prayer. Lots of people raised their hands that they had prayed, and we passed out ALL our New Testaments!!

The rest of the races went on, separated by age or experience, and ending with the Americans. Ronnie and Mike raced with a couple of Hondurans, and then, as we mentioned before, Ryan, Shawn, and Jimmy. It wasn't until the race was on lap 2 that Ryan discovered his bike was having a major problem. But, just like everything else God has planned, even this was a chance for the guys to show the Hondurans, Christians live life differently. We couldn't have scripted it to all go more perfectly, and more glorifying to God.

We pray that this time next year, the biggest group we've ever sent to Honduras will have just gotten back, from a race three times the size of the one we held last Sunday. Thank you for all your support, contributions, and especially prayers. All I can say is, "Topela Papa!!"

Last Day of the trip and Home Again!!

We are home!!

The last day was spent in travel, and as you noticed, no, we didn't get a chance to write from Houston. By the time we had claimed our bags, gone through customs, re-checked the bags, eaten, and gotten to the gate, we only had about 30 minutes till flight time, and honestly, I was way too wiped out to worry with getting the computer out and setting it up! :-)

I had gotten a little bit of a sore throat the night before, and by Houston, I felt like I had quite a cold/allergy attack (never know which!!) and was doing my best to take my Sudafed and be nice to everyone!

I have uploaded all the pictures I have to Snapfish, and will try to send a link to everyone soon! I know, you've seen all the good ones anyway! But, these are much better quality, and of course it's easier to print from there too! Plus, I could only send about 12 pictures maximum each day, and there are about 800!!

We had lunch Monday at the McDonald's in the airport in Tegucigalpa, which was interesting. I got an all Spanish Happy Meal, as did Amanda. I brought the box and toys home to the kids. They were reasonably impressed. :-)

We got to gate 4, which you have to travel through the Latin Duty Free store to get to, only to find out that we had been moved to gate 5 back on the other side again! (Or maybe that was vise versa!) They loaded us down some stairs and outside to find that they load this plane from the back!! I never heard of that before!

Then, another surprise was that the flight attendant was American! They all were! I'm not sure why this was such a shock, but when she started talking and I realized I understood everything she said, I actually almost hugged her! Odd, and luckily I didn't!!! 

We got seated and decided rather or not to swipe a credit card for an $8 charge to watch movies on the back of the seat in front of you. Sam and I turned his tv on, and he plugged in his IPod earphones, with us each taking one. But he wanted to watch Promethius, a scary aliens movie, and I quickly handed him back his other earphone!

Just about the time they shut the back plane door, people started murmuring all over the plane, "Oh! This is that really crazy take off!" and "I forgot, this is a wild take off, wait till you see!" I was sitting between Sam and Ronnie, and Sam was already giggling at me. 

Ronnie informed me that "Oh yeah, this is the number 2 most dangerous airport in the world. You should look it up when you get home." I looked at him and as calmly as possibly said, "I don't like roller coasters." Then I grabbed on to Sam's hand. Ronnie says, "Well, this is pretty wild." Super.

Basically, there is about 6000 feet of runway. You know it's bad when the pilot turns left when there is less than a parking lot length of runway in that direction, and you realize it's so he can back up to the very very edge! They hit the gas, several of the guys yelled, "Topela Papa!!!" which even had me laughing, and then they take off down the runway at a zillion miles an hour, and almost instantly tip back at a crazy angle and blast nearly straight up!!

It wasn't as bad as I was prepared for. But it did feel a bit like being on the Space Shuttle for a second. :-) {Just as a side note: Back at home we went to Bible Study and told this story to Patty, who informed us that they used to catapult her planes off the end of the aircraft carrier. http://science.howstuffworks.com/aircraft-carrier3.htm I do not intend to experience that.) }

Ok, so that's not really us. It's a picture off the site "fearofflyinghelp.com" It is explaining that a steep take off isn't dangerous. If you say so...

The flight from there was very uneventful, and as I mentioned the most exciting thing in the following airport that happened was customs. Although, I will say Courtney had a bit of a snag when they made her walk from customs all the way back down to the checked baggage area to put something back into her luggage that she had actually bought in Duty Free in Honduras. We all thought that was kind of crazy.

Once we had eaten and were finally at the gate in Houston, we found out that due to a combination of bad weather out East and maintenance issues in Texas, lots of flights had been delayed. Our own still showed up as on time (7:45pm) but they announced it would be delayed. After another 30 minutes, about 7:40 maybe, they finally boarded our plane. 

We had to walk out a door, down a long hall, through another door, and outside. Then we climbed onto what I thought was much too small a plane. It was only 3 seats across! 

 

We all got settled and just before they were going to shut the cabin door, a man in bright orange security gear came onto the plane with a clipboard and asked Ronnie, I guess because he was the first person in our group that he came to, if he knew Nichols or Jackson. I actually didn't register the names because we had been calling them both Mark.

Ronnie must have thought the same thing, because he didn't answer at first. The man, who I thought looked a bit like Einstein, said, "Are you with the group of 17?" (btw there are 20 of us, so don't ask me why he said 17.) Finally it kind of clicked and we all said, yes, we knew the two men.

He said, "well they aren't on the plane and we are leaving." With that he turned around and walked off the plane. No one moved at first, but then suddenly we understood what they were telling us and everyone started asking Shawn to call Mark Nichols, because we knew he had Mark's cell phone number.

He, correctly I might add, pointed out that he was the last person that should call Mark. They had been pranking each other and joking all week. He said, "he'll never believe me!" Sure enough, Mark pretty much figured it was a joke and was ready to hang up on Shawn. Amanda got on the phone and said, "really, it's not a joke, we are on the plane!" But he must have thought she was in on it. Finally someone, I think Amanda again, got Mark back on the phone and said, "Seriously, where are you? We are leaving!!" Bad news was, that by this point it was too late. Right at that moment the flight attendant slammed the cabin door and kind of nonchalantly shrugged and walked away. A man in front of Ronnie said, "It's too late now, they aren't allowed to open the door again once it's closed."

I don't think I truly believed it. I kept expecting Mark and Mark to come running out the outside door or someone to radio the plane. But neither thing happened. The plane started rolling.

By this point, once there was truly nothing to be done at all, people started nervously laughing, and eventually making jokes. Oh man, I felt soooo bad for them! Someone later said they had gone to get ice cream or something once they had told us the flight was delayed. I think we won't really know what happened until Mark tells us himself, however at this point, he may never tell!!

Anyway, Ronnie talked the flight attendant into getting a picture with Shawn laughing together as if they had caused the whole thing, which surely Mark knew was a big joke. But, they did text the picture to Mark. 

When I went to the Dominican Republic (I know I say that phrase every couple of days, sorry - it's the only other mission trip I've been on!!) we got stranded for an extra 48 hours because of a missed flight! It was so upsetting to us. We had prepared ourselves to make it through to that day, and when the airport told us that our flight was cancelled - due to a volcano in Puerto Rico if you can imagine - we just melted down. :-( So, that's what I was thinking about when I finally knew that Mark and Mark had missed the flight. 

I heard last night that they finally got home the next afternoon at 1pm. Not sure if that's correct, but man have they got a story to share later!!

Ok, I have one more picture to share. If it looks totally black, you may have to look in dimmer light. The big white thing is the moon. :-)

 

This is the best I could do trying to take a picture of the incredible scene out the window on the way to Louisville. There was a thunderstorm below and low clouds above us for some of the trip, but for a little while the full moon was glowing down onto the fluffy white clouds below. It was amazing. But my camera could only see blackness. Finally, I found a setting on the camera called, Starry Night. It holds the shutter open for 15, 30, or 60 seconds. I took lots of pictures using this, but as you can imagine, the plane was bouncing like crazy over those clouds. So, this is the best I could do. :-) The clouds must have been whizzing by pretty fast. They just look like streaks. I couldn't help wishing my kids could see it, and finally resolved to look at it really really good, and then describe it later instead.

It looked like an ocean with white fluffy foam floating along silently. The blue/white glow of the moon combined with the dark grey highlights from the shadows of the night gave the whole thing a fresh snow kind of look. But had it been snow, the surface would have been flat. But not this! These clouds were like thousands of shining puffs drifting along.

Thanks for keeping up with us during our trip!! I got an envelope from the missionaries just before I left Honduras, from the little girls at House of Hope. It was full of pictures they had drawn and letters they have written. Finally, there is a picture titled, "The girls are dancing for the Lord." I will try to scan them in sometime and pass them along.

Here is the link to the www.snapfish.com album if you want it!

Bye!!

Haven't I commanded you: be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

Joshua 1:9 (HCSB)

Mary Conver

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