21 February 2007
The Bob Challenge
I'm currently reading If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat, by John Ortberg. Great book. The Beeson Spouses are studying it together. I just finished chapter 4 last night and there is a story that struck a chord with me because I know for a fact that this is how God works. I would just summarize the story, but I think it's much better in its original form. Here it is:
“One of my favorite adventures in prayer involves Doug Coe, who has a ministry in Washington, DC, that mostly involves people in politics and statecraft. Doug became acquainted with Bob, an insurance salesman who was completely unconnected with any government circles. Bob became a Christian and began to meet with Doug to learn about his new faith.
One day, Bob came in all excited about a statement in the Bible where Jesus says, “Ask whatever you will in my name, and you shall receive it.”
“Is that really true?“ Bob demanded.
Doug explained, “Well, it's not a blank check. You have to take it in context of the teachings of the whole Scripture on prayer. But yes—it really is true. Jesus really does answer prayer.”
“Great!” Bob said. “Then I gotta start praying for something. I think I'll pray for Africa.”
“That's kind of a broad target. Why don't you narrow it down to one country” Doug advised.
“All right. I'll pray for Kenya.”
“Do you know anyone in Kenya?”
“No.”
“Ever been to Kenya?”
“No.” Bob just wanted to pray for Kenya.
So Doug made an unusual arrangement. He challenged Bob to pray every day for six months for Kenya. If Bob would do that and nothing extraordinary happened, Doug would pay him five hundred dollars. But if something remarkable did happen, Bob would pay Doug five hundred dollars. And if Bob did not pray every day, the whole deal was off. It was a pretty unusual prayer program, bu then Doug is a creative guy.
Bob began to pray, and for a long while nothing happened. Then one night he was at a dinner in Washington. The people around the table explained what they did for a living. One woman said she helped run an orphanage in Kenya—the largest of its kind.
Bob saw five hundred dollars suddenly sprout wings and begin to fly away. But he could not keep quiet. Bob roared to life. He had not said much up to this point, and now he pounded her relentlessly with question after question.
“You're obviously very interested in my country,” the woman said to Bob, overwhelmed by his sudden barrage of questions. “You've been to Kenya before?”
“No.”
“You now someone in Kenya?”
“No.”
“Then how do you happen to b so curious?”
“Well, someone is kind of paying me five hundred dollars to pray...”
She asked Bob is he would like to come visit Kenya and tour the orphanage. Bob was so eager to go, he would have left that very night if he could.
When Bob arrived in Kenya, he was appalled by the poverty and the lack of basic health car. Upon returning to Washington, he couldn't get this place out of his mind. He began to write to large pharmaceutical companies, describing to them the vast need he had seen. He reminded them that every year they would trow away large amounts of medical supplies that went unsold. “Why not send them to this place in Kenya?” he asked.
And some of them did. This orphanage received more than a million dollars worth of medical supplies.
The woman called Bob up and said, “Bob, this is amazing! We've had the most phenomenal gifts because of the letters you wrote. We would like to fly you back over and have a big party. Will you come?”
So Bob flew back to Kenya. While he was there, the president of Kenya came to the celebration, because it was the largest orphanage in the country, and offered to take Bob on a tour of Nairobi, the capital city. In the course of the tour they saw a prison. Bob asked about a group of prisoners there.
“They're political prisoners,” he was told.
“That's a bad idea,” Bob said brightly. “You should let them out.”
Bob finished the tour and flew back home. Sometime later, Bob received a phone call from the State Department of the United States government:
“Is this Bob?”
“Yes.”
“Were you recently in Kenya?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make any statements to the president about political prisoners?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him he should let them out.”
The State Department official explained that the department had been working for years to get the release of these prisoners, to no avail. Normal diplomatic channels and political maneuverings had led to a dead end. But now the prisoners had been released, and the
State Department was told it had been largely because of... Bob. So, the government was calling to say thanks.
Several months later, the president of Kenya made a phone call to Bob. He was going to rearrange his government and select a new cabinet. Would Bob be willing to fly over and pray for him for three days while he worked on this very important task?
So Bob—who was not politically connected at all—boarded a plane once more and flew back to Kenya, where he prayed and asked God to give wisdom for the leader of the nation as he selected his government. All this happened because one man got out of the boat.
So, what about you? What are you praying for? What one need that's bigger than yourself would you be willing to pray for over the next six months? Where are you willing to step out of the boat and let God do extraordinary work? I'm still thinking & praying about the one thing to which I'm going to devote six months of prayer. That's my Ash Wednesday commitment—figure it out, and get started. I've got an idea of where God is going to take me with this. I'll let you know tomorrow.

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posted by Aimee @ 5:09 AM   7 comments
17 February 2007
Names

YOUR REAL NAME:

Aimee


YOUR GANGSTA NAME (1st 4 letters plus izzle):

Aimeizzle


YOUR DETECTIVE NAME (fave color + fave animal):
Blue Dragon


YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name + childhood street):

Lynn Latham


YOUR STAR WARS NAME (last 3 letters of your last name + first 2 letters of your first name + first 3 letters of Mom's maiden name):

Heraiwit


YOUR SUPER HERO NAME (2nd fave color + fave drink):
Pink Tonic


YOUR IRAQI NAME (2nd letter of your first name + 3rd letter of your last name + any letter of your middle name + 2nd letter of your Mom's maiden name + 3rd letter of your Dad's middle name + 1st letter of a sibling's first name + last letter of your Mom's middle name):

Icliejn


YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM NAME (Grandma/Grandpa's first name + Jones):

Henrietta Jones


YOUR GOTH NAME (Black + name of one of your pets):
Black Six

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posted by Aimee @ 9:57 AM   0 comments
14 February 2007
Carol Ann Witte Allen :: May 27, 1941-January 7, 2007
For my Mom's funeral I went through boxes of old pictures and selected the best ones for display. I created four big boards full of pictures. I've spent most of the last two days scanning those pictures (all 201 of them) and creating CDs to give to other family members. It has been good for me to go through all those pictures again, but it's been emotionally draining.

Anyway, I'd like to share some of my favorites with you.

When Mom was four her family took a vacation to Niagara Falls. Here she is by the Maid of the Mist. Something that really struck me in many of the pictures I scanned was her enthusuasm for life. I can feel the energy and passion in her early pictures. She was a child who enjoyed being a child. There are some great expressions in her pictures.


Hmmmmm..... What do you think 5-year-old Carol is thinking? LOL

Ah ha! That's what she's thinking!

Here is Mom when she was 7 with her Dad. She always adored her Daddy—she & her sister Sharon called him Daddy until the day he died.

She apparently had a great Christmas when she was 5. There are a ton of pictures from that year. I especially like this picture. She is holding her dolly so tenderly and standing in front of her new dollhouse.

OK, here's a bizarre one. Why are my Mom & her friend Joan dressed like Indians and posing with the mailman?
I am reading and journaling through a great book right now. Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul is a book that explains the God-given desires of every woman's heart: to be romanced, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure and to unveil beauty. As I read it (I'm only on chapter one. LOL) so much of my mother's life makes sense.

This picture makes me sad. Mom is 4-and-a-half and dressed for trick-or-treating. Now, maybe there are four-year-old girls out there who don't want to dress like a princess/ballet dancer/fairy/queen/bride/beauty, but I am certain that my Mom was not one of them. My Mom was a girly-girl who longed to be found beautiful in the eyes of the world. (Like every woman.) I am certain that she did not choose this costume. I will never truly understand the dynamics between Mom & Grandma, but I know that Mom never felt fully accepted and loved. She was devoted to her mother, but she struggled her whole life with their relationship.
Here she is on Easter Day in 1953. She was almost 12. I hope she felt beautiful this day. I hope she felt like the most beautiful girl in church that morning. I hope she twirled a few times and pleasured in her God-given beauty.

My brother got married in 1999. For their reception, he and Pam decided to have a costume ball. (It was the best reception ever!) My Mom and Dad (at my Mom's decision) dressed as a Civil War couple. (It was so my Mom could wear a beautiful dress. But, she wouldn't let my Dad carry a real sword. LOL) She ended up hating how she looked in the dress. (described herself as "two-ton Tilly.") But, I think (I hope) she still enjoyed herself that day.
And, here is why she viewed herself as fat later in life. She was 5'9" tall and weighed 110 pounds most of her life. (I'm only 5'7" and I haven't weighed 110 pounds since sometime in Junior High. Makes me sick! LOL)
Mom was in the Civil Air Patrol in her teens. Here she is a drill competition when she was 17. (I don't know if she won.) (This is the sad thing about having pictures jumbled in a box. The stories are gone. I am vigilant about scrapbooking: putting our photos in albums and writing the stories alongside. This is why. I want my children to know their history. I want them to have visual reminders to remember their past.)

Mom made everything for us. She made our clothes, she cooked everything from scratch, she created special things for special events. She was a creator, a doer. This is my brother's birthday. I don't know how old he was—maybe 3? I'm sure she was quite pleased with this cake she made.
In her later years she focused her creative energies and desire for beauty in her gardens. She won an award last summer for her flower gardens. She was so proud. And she had every right to be. She took a barren plot of land in the middle of nowhere and created an oasis that was breathtaking. This picture shows her standing at the entrance to her largest garden.
Here are some more garden pix. (Proud daughter.)
The garden is where I will miss my Mom the most. I planted flowers and plants with her. We would talk for hours on end about what she was going to plant each year. We would pour through seed catalogs and walk around the property talking about how it would look. My Mom had the gift of being able to envision what it would look like. She could do this with anything. She could look at a patch of dirt and see the future. She could see the flowers and plants clearly in her mind. In the house, she could look at a room and mentally rearrange the furniture into a perfect fit. She could also look at a room and see how it would look when it was remodeled. Fortunately my Dad was able to do that remodeling. In the kitchen of our house on Richie Avenue, she had him move the sink, the back door and a window. It made the room a totally different room. It was an amazing gift she had. (And one that would wear my Dad down at times. LOL)

Here is my Aunt Sharon & Mom with their Mother, Henrietta. Every year on the Saturday before Mother's Day, my Aunt (from Chicago) & Mom would drive to Toledo, Ohio and plant flowers for their mother. All three always enjoyed the day.

OK, some family photos:
Easter Day, 1972 in front of Grandma & Grandpa's trailer. Left to right in the back: Uncle Frank (Aunt Sharon must be taking the picture) Grandpa Bert (he died one-and-a-half years after this picture. I never really knew him. He was the one my Mom called Daddy until he died.) Grandma Henrietta, Dad, Mom, and the adorable baby in her arms is me. In the front is Shelly and Jeff (my sister and brother.)

This one was taken in 1979 in front of our house. From left to right in the back: Dad, Jeff, Mom. In the front: Shelly, me. I was 8 and quite pleased to be wearing my hand-me-down David Cassidy t-shirt.
Here we are sometime in the late 80's. (My mother was terrible about labeling photos!) My Mom liked this picture so much that she blew it up to 5x7's and gave each of us a copy.

Here is Mom and Dad on her birthday in 1984. She was 43.
Christmas, 2000. Mom & Dad, and Sophie-bird in their “new” house out in the country.

Our wedding: August 18, 1990. Mom was still making clothes. She made the dress she is wearing. She was going to make my wedding dress, but when we priced it out it was going to be much less expensive to just buy a dress.

I saved this picture for last. I love this picture. I made it the wallpaper on my computer. This was taken at my Mom's birthday party when she turned 7. The girls from left to right: Carol Witte (my Mom,) Bonnie Kieff (not sure if I'm spelling that right—Grandma was good about labeling the backs of photos, but her handwriting is a bit hard to read) Nancy Krise, Elfrieda Bauch, and Gail Blessing. I can't tell you exactly what I like so much about this photo. It's not so much that it's my Mom, but just the girls themselves. This picture just captures the essence of childhood for me. I can't explain it any better than that. That it was taken at my Mom's birthday party, makes it that much more special to me.
Well, if you've read this far, I'm impressed. Thanks for taking this little journey with me. I miss my Mom. I know that she's in paradise now and I know that God is the God of all and will help me through my grief, but the pain is still real and I miss her a lot. I wish all of you well. Now, go hug someone you love. :)
Aimee

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posted by Aimee @ 5:25 AM   6 comments
About Me

Name: Aimee
Home: Lima, Ohio, United States
About Me: I own and run 123 Design Studio, a custom web and graphic design studio. I am mother to four wonderful boys: Max, age 10, Xavier, age 7, Eli, age 3, and Toby, age 1. Bryan & I have been married for 18 (mostly wonderful LOL) years. I eat excessive amounts of sugar and laugh inappropriately.
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