Camp, Get-Away & Time with the Rices

Ah, the long awaited week of summer camp is here! The girls are currently at Adventure Mountain at Forest Home and I pray they are having a blast and growing in their love and knowledge of our Lord. This is their second summer at camp, but their first time at Adventure Mountain. Just like last year, I click through the pictures Forest Home puts online each day in hopes of seeing the girls having a great time. We have seen one smiling picture of Kiley in the pool, but none of Makenna. I admit, it's so discouraging not to find lots of pictures of them. At least we got to see Kiley, as she is the one that has the hardest time being away from us. So far, Kiley has sent 2 postcards and Makenna has sent 1. All say they are having fun, making friends and enjoying the adventure. The highlight for Kiley is that Miley Cyrus' sister is there. As much as I enjoy the peace and quiet at home, I am missing them.


Just after dropping them off at the church to leave for camp, John and I headed to Oceanside with our "front row friends," the O'Malleys. We enjoyed our time there laughing, relaxing, laughing, shopping, laughing, eating and did I mention laughing? It was a great time and the 2 days went way too fast!

One of my favorite moments in our quick trip was meeting up with Derek and Christiana Rice in San Diego. As I've posted before, they are dear friends of ours that moved there as missionaries to reach out to the community living in poverty there and show them the love of Jesus by befriending them and living in community with them. We feel so blessed to come along side them and sponsor them in this ministry. On Monday, we went to visit them and have lunch with them. It was wonderful to see where they are living, learn what they are doing and catch up with them. Their daughter, Naomi, is growing so quickly and so is Christiana's belly as she is coming to the end of her first trimester of pregnancy. I know Naomi will make a great big sister, even though she will be not quite 2 when her sibling is born. As we spent time with them, I became more and more determined to make visits with them a regular experience. I feel so strongly about the ministry they are leading there and I want to be a part of it physically, not just financially.

I would love to write more, but now I'm moving onto another project that I hope to finish before the girls return.

In Giving, I Received

I have often found that when I set out to do something for someone else, to bless them by serving them, I am often the one that walks away blessed. For example, several summers ago, I went to Guatemala to build a cistern in a small village called Santa Maria de Jesus. I went there with the mindset that we were going to help them so much. Not only would we give them constant access to water, but this gift of a cistern would change their lives. I had this image that as we dug this giant cistern, we would be teaching the villagers about Jesus and how His unconditional love inspires us to serve others selflessly. My group did do that, but what I didn’t expect was how blessed I would be by them, how it would be ME that walked away forever inspired by the Guatemalan people.

The same came true this past summer. For the past 6 weeks, I’ve taught chapel for 4 year-olds through 6th graders at a summer day camp. Most of the children at this day camp come from unchurched families even though it’s a Christian day camp. Again, I had this idea that I would come in and teach these children about Jesus. My goal was not to teach them just about Jesus, but how a relationship with Christ would be the most life changing decision they could ever make. For the younger children, I suppose I laid the foundation for their future experiences with Christ. For the older children, who knows! Most of them look like they’re listening. I pray that I got through to them that they would desire to know more. Now here I am, the last week of my time with them and only one session left with each age group and I am the one who was blessed. They touched my life is so many ways. Each day that they entered the sanctuary with eager smiles and excitement to see what I had for them that day, I felt God warming my heart. It’s as if God has told me, “Well done, my dear daughter, you doing as I’ve taught you, to love others and share the gospel with them.” I came into this job knowing that there was no curriculum and that I would have to write my own lesson plans. Each weekend as I sat down to plan, God always inspired me and guided me to the perfect lesson. God is so good!

God never ceases to amaze me and teach me something new. He is always at work in my life and giving me so much more than I could ever give. Through this job, He also blessed my daughters. They served along side me as my little “assistants.” I watched my shy, socially awkward daughter, K, blossom as she lead the children in song and dance and both K and M made sure I had all I needed each day. Thank you Lord for this gift you gave me this summer

My Daughter, Kiley, the Giver of Advice

Kiley may only be 11 years old, but there's a lot of wisdom in those 11 years. She sure knows me well. She knows I'm constantly pushing the limits on how much I can get done in as little time as possible. So it didn't surprise me the other day when she begged me to listen to her. It was 10 minutes until 8:00pm and with probably only 10 minutes of decent sunlight left and maybe another 20 minutes after that of fading sunlight, I decided I was going to try to hurry and mow the front yard. If you've seen our front yard, you would know that this is a much longer project than 30 minutes, our front yard is one giant area of grass! As I'm rushing to change into my "lawn work clothes" and grabbing my ipod, Kiley says, "Mom, please don't! You don't have enough time and you need to slow down and relax this evening." She stopped me dead in my tracks. She was right and was thinking more logically than me! I would have never finished it in the daylight and what was the hurry? I could easily do it the next evening when I could start on it earlier. Perhaps I should listen to this wise young lady more often!

Celebrating 15 Years of Marriage

It's hard to believe, but just a few days ago, John and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary! It's amazing how the years have passed so quickly. Even more amazing is that we started dating 4 years before we even got married. I have spent more of my life with John than I lived before I met him. I feel so blessed that God chose John to be my husband. As far as marriages go, I feel like I hit the jackpot! We almost never fight and we tend to always be thinking about the same things without even saying a word out loud. It's like we have that "twin thing" going on.
God's Hand has always been on this marriage. I'm amazed all He has done for us and through us. We have been blessed with 2 beautiful daughters that we praise God for daily. Our prayers are that God will provide K and M with Godly husbands and that they'll have a strong marriage like ours. God's given us the ability to buy, then sell, then buy another beautiful home. The last 15 years haven't all been easy, we've had our share of medical scares, surgeries and difficult recoveries, the loss of loved ones and other hard times, but we count those all as building blocks to get where we are today and be the people God wants us to be for Him, for our children and for each other. We look forward to another 15 years and beyond as we continue to grow old together with God as the center of our family.

My New Website

Mooralley Custom Room Designs is up and running and we finally have our website up! It took a lot of work, many hours of wanting to scream at the computer, but the new website is just what Janet and I wanted. We get to show off our work and hopefully bring in some new business. We have our next job this Friday at my parent's house. It will be a relatively small job compared to our last job! I will post those pictures once it's complete. For now, please check out our new website at: www.muralyourroom.com.

My Summer Job

By the end of this week I will be half way through my part time, 6 week summer job. I am teaching chapel to 4 year-olds through 6th graders at a summer day camp. The greatest part about this job is that I'm working for Estina Schrock again! She was my babysitter when I was little and I also attended her day camp as a tween when she first started it 27 years ago. Then, in my mid teens, I worked for the day camp as a teen helper. After all these years, she thought of me when her regular chapel director had to go on maternity leave. I have really enjoyed teaching again and best of all, there is absolutely no curriculum, so I have the opportunity to be creative, write my own curriculum and run chapel how I want to do it rather than being told how to do. So far the kids have been great and my daughters have been great helpers! I don't know what I would do without their help. I only teach a total of 3 hours a week broken up over 3 mornings. Does it get much better than this?

The gift of Father's Day

Unlike Mother's Day, John didn't have to work on Father's Day. I guess it's better that he didn't have to work on his day if I had to pick from the two. We went to church and I made him one of his favorite meals, chicken tacos made in the crock pot. We enjoyed a nice family day together and John spent much of the day setting up and playing with his new computer.

The funny thing about Father's Day is that I received a very special gift that day when I called my dad to wish him a Happy Father's Day. Now the ironic part, he said he received a special gift from me during church that morning (my parents live in Wrightwood, therefore we go to different churches). He said their pastor spoke on standing up for what's right, even when it's not popular. You see, I recently did that very thing. Last year I stood up for what was right and it came at some cost (the loss of a couple of friends and some other issues), but what I lost was absolutely nothing compared to all I GAINED. My father went on to say that his pastor talked about how when you stand up for what is right in the eyes of the Lord, you will be richly rewarded. He said that all through the sermon he thought about what I had done and the outcome of it all. He said it brought him such pride that he raised a daughter that was bold enough to stand up for what was right. Those words from my father meant so much to me that I was practically speechless. I felt as though, once again, the Lord confirmed to me that I was a faithful servant who is richly blessed.

So, it seems, Father's Day was a special day for both John and me!