For all the electrical engineers and those that love power

 Carl works in the power industry and when he travels he takes pictures of power poles.  I now know to expect this and enjoy hearing about all that he sees in pictures like these that just look like power poles to my untrained eye.

Do you have any questions?  Ask Carl!

A 1000 words more or less and two pictures!

Last night the Peru group shared their testimonies at church.  Kaitlin and Carl both made slide shows using all the pictures from the group.  They both went through LOTS of pictures.  I got to see both of their shows.  I took these two pictures and I've posted them on my blog before.  In going through all the pictures over the last few days I was struck by something I noticed in these- Look at the top picture.  I think it is a great one.  They are all smiling and ready to go but notice all the arms.  You can see most everyones.  Now the bottom picture.  It was taken after they were together for 9 days.  Notice the arms- they are mostly around someone.  When I pointed this out to Kaitlin and Carl they said that this showed how close they group became and why the trip went so well.  A picture is truly worth a 1000 words.

Kaitlin Peru Part Two!

Here is another post about what the team did each morning at the clinic!

Each morning, we would eat breakfast at the hotel!

Everyone enjoyed the breakfast! Every morning there was fresh fruit, eggs, toast and then a local Peruvian dish that changed every morning! There was some dry cereals, a fruit loop type one and then a cornflakes kinda one. They were a perfect match to the pourable yogurt! Strawberry was my personal favorite. 

We had to be all ready to go by 8am to leave to head to the clinic. Monday morning we had to take all the medicine and then the days after that we just left them at the clinic. 

Next stop taxi's to the clinic! 

We drove about 30 mins to Arevalo Church! The clinic we were working at was right next to this church. They are also building a school on the same grounds.  

Each day we would go in and set up the different rooms for the Doctor's and pharmacy. After we got the rooms all set up we would do a devotion with our group and the people waiting for the clinic. On Thursday, Allen Smith talked about glimpses of heaven! He gave the an example of watching a movie trailer, the scenes you see are in the movie, but they are just glimpses of the movie. That is how we see Heaven here on earth! We see glimpses of Heaven, through interactions, people, nature but they are only glimpses of true Heaven!! 

The patients would come in a get a number and fill out a sheet of paper with their name, age, and address. Then they would wait in line for triage. The triage nurses were Kirk and Barbara.

After they would go through the triage next step was waiting for a Doctor. At this point they have had interaction with Cindy, Carl (my pops), Olivia and Ryan who would make sure they knew what was going and also making sure they were in the right line.  

Dr. Darrell's room and Allen Smith translating! 

Dr. Ken in his room with his interpreter Elizabeth Johnson who is an RN and speaks Spanish!

Dr. Clare had Del Ellison as an interpreter this day! 

I know your wondering what I did during this time!! Wellll I played with the kiddos!! Before we left Little Rock, Olivia and I copied over 1,000 coloring sheets! We also packed up about 500 crayons and made about 500 paper flower kits! It was fun to see the kids color and pick which colors they needed for the picture they got! I tried to tell the kids that they could keep the picture, but a lot of them brought them to me and did not want to take them back! 

The paper flowers were the biggest hit! When I was working on them in Little Rock, my thought was the girls will love this! But the Holy Spirit told me to not make everyone have pink or purple in it! Make some with "boy" colors just in case! So I did. Really did not know why but I knew I needed to! And I'm so very glad I did! The boys enjoyed the flowers just as much as the girls! If they had the choice they would always choose the ones that did not have pink or purple in them! 

It was so fun to teach the kids to make something new and to see their eyes light up when they saw that what we were making turned into a flower! I also made them for the older ladies in the waiting room who were by themselves! Some of the kids wanted to make them themselves and others wanted me to make them! I think we made at least 300 flowers over the four days we were there! We left the rest for the people at the church!

Then it was off to lunch! Which will be my next blog allllll about the food! You will need a snack when you read that blog! 

Kaitlin Peru Part One!

Good Morning!

Here is a guest blog by my wonderful daughter Kaitlin! She went on a mission trip to Peru with our church!

I want to start by saying Thank you to all the people that prayed for us while we were gone on our trip! 

We left Little Rock, AR on Friday Aug. 2nd! We flew from here to Houston, TX and then from Houston to Lima, Peru! The flight to Lima was 6 hours and we had a nice plane where each person had their own tv.

I watched a few movies on the way down and back, it made the flight go by a little faster! 

We arrived in Lima, Peru around 1030pm. We had to go through customs and then baggage claim then we met our wonderful, amazing, spanish speaking, tour guide name Alleen! We stayed at a nice hotel in Lima! 

After a great nights sleep we all met up in the lobby to head to breakfast! We walked down to the ocean and ate at a buffet that over looks the Pacific ocean!! 

Fresh fruit, banana bread, eggs, cheese, and the best thing pourable yougart! Sooooo wonderful!!  After we were full on yummy food we walked through the city to the Indian Market to do some shopping!! 

This is the store where we bought my mother a cute little Nativity! We enjoyed shopping and looking at everything in the huge market! We walked back to the hotel and got on a bus to head to the air port to fly to Trujillo, Peru! We got to Trujillo and went to the hotel!

We got settled in at the hotel, I roomed with Olivia! We had a great time! We got in the taxi's and headed to dinner with one of the Missionary family that is with the Peru Mission! We ate with the Ellison family! They cooked us an amazing dinner and it was fun to eat in a home!

We got back in the taxi's to head to the hotel! Let me stop right here and tell you about our taxi rides. First, the driving in Peru is very different then driving in West Little Rock, AR. Second, We were normally in about 4 taxi's, and third rule was the girls got the party car! On our way to dinner on saturday night we were just riding along, talking, and listening to the radio, but not really hearing it. Then it hit us!! We were listening to Taylor Swift! We started to sing and dance and our driver loved it!! So that is why our car was dubbed the party car! After dinner he played us more english music and we had a great time dancing in the car! 

 We all slept really well and were looking forward to going to church the next day with the Smith Family! We woke up Sunday morning and ate breakfast at the hotel!

We went to Cristo Rey Presbyterian Church on Sunday Morning! The building was very close to the hotel so we just walked down the street to church! The whole service was in Spanish! I enjoyed being thrown into the culture! Even though I could not understand everything that was said, it was very worshipful and exciting to see God there in another country! Allen preached about Speaking the truth in love. Which was a very good message to hear before a week of being with people and having to talk to them! This message is still with me this week while I work and encounter people here in Little Rock! After church we took a group picture of our group with the Smith family!

Then it was back to the hotel to change clothes and then head to lunch at the Smith's House! This is where we met up with the rest of the Peru Mission team and just fellowship with the team! We had a huge lunch and wonderful dessert! After we ate we sat around in the living room and sang all together! 

For Dinner we ate at a restaurant! They had some really yummy chicken! Thankfully Alleen ordered our meals for us! We had rotisserie chicken, fried chicken, french fries, frozen lemonade and cow heart. I did not try the cow heart, but Darrell and Olivia enjoyed it! 

More of my trip coming tomorrow!! 

Peru mission trip- the view from Arkansas

at the airport before they left

 Carl and Kaitlin went with a group from our church to Peru on a medical mission trip.  They were gone for 9 days.  Kaitlin is going to blog on here about their trip this week.


It was an interesting week for me.  I love my job.  I love being a wife and mother and grandmother.  Kaitlin and Carl are not here a lot but usually they are not gone at the same time.   With both of them gone it took me awhile to get my bearings.  I had my week planned so that I wouldn't just go home and wander.  I am thankful for family and friends that checked up on me- thank you Andrew, Marisa, Alicia, HannahB, Sandy, JenniferL, Renee, Liz, Carrie, Robert and Beth.  It made me know that I need to check on folks.  I prayed for the widows at our church who have lost their bearings.  I prayed for the team in Peru and the folks they left behind here.  I prayed for the Missionaries we have in Peru, Allen and Sandi.

A verse that took on new meaning from Acts- in Him we live and move and have our being

I love technology - facetime, email, instagram made me feel like I was a part of the group and that we really weren't that far away.

at the airport when they arrived back to LR

The group had a great time with each other, seeing new sights and helping the medical clinic and the folks they saw.  It was Carl and Kaitlin's first time in the southern Hemisphere.  They got to see the water drain 'the other way'. This was Carl's 4th mission trip and Kaitlin's 3rd.  It was our friend, Clare's 14th!

I am very thankful for the safety of the trip and the lives that were changed both in our group and in the lives of those in Peru.  And the changes in my life too.  I am thankful that God grows us to be more like Him each and every day.

Mr Wonderful and Aunt Fairest

 Kaitlin aka Aunt Fairest and I babysat for Mr Wonderful recently.  It always fun to babysit with a photographer because she catches such fun moments.  Kaitlin loves hands.

 Kaitlin worked the day we babysat and then came to help me babysit.  She was tired.  She laid down to keep Mr Wonderful in the living room.  He brought a toy over to her so they could play together.  My heart just melted.  What a pair of sweethearts I have!