~Our Home Sweet Home!~

Hello! Hello! Hello! Thank you for your prayers and comments concerning our trip back to the USA. The Lord gave us a wonderful trip! YEA! We also had a wonderful Comargo camp...pictures to come later! For now, I'll post some pics from our last few days there in Colombia...and a couple pics from our fixer-upper house that the Lord helped us to get to live in when we are in the USA!
~Since Kimberly was still working hard at getting her schoolwork done, Sarah was my right hand lady in helping me pack all of our suitcases. =)~
~Right before our last prayer meeting in Colombia we went out with Jimmy, Farly, and girls. We gave them some early birthday gifts and another gift. We had a nice time.~
~I scrapbooked a page of the pictures from when Pastor Jimmy was ordained and had it matted and framed. He was ordained at the first Christian Nation Church congress that was held in Colombia. Pastor Eisenhart, Pastor Pilmore, Bro. Becker, and Bro. Hausman all came to visit Colombia for that week. Bro. Jimmy and Sis. Farly really liked the gift.~
~Saying those hard goodbyes! Sis. Farly said lots of nice words about our family and prayed such a sweet prayer our last Sunday. She was weeping so hard she could hardly pray. Talk about making this pregnant lady weep too! =) Thankfully, it is just going to be for 5 months or so and we should be back in Colombia again, Lord willing!~
~Our last Sunday there in Colombia, the ladies used the Betty Lukens Sunday School material and they and the kids loved it.~
~Finally, the day arrived for us to fly to the USA. The Lord gave us a great travel day, one of the best we have ever had. This time we only had 2 planes to catch instead of the 3 we had last January. Thankfully, Elijah slept on our first plane.~
~Our girls and I on our first flight. (I've learned to just braid my hair when I travel so that all my hair pins don't set off all of the detectors and delay us while I get Wand-ed to find out if I'm going to high-jack the next plane. ) =D~
~Daddy and our boys eating our yummy full breakfast that we got fed in route from Colombia to Atlanta, GA. ~
~Here we are that night outside of the Columbus, Ohio airport with all of our suitcases. =)~
~Daddy and Moma were there to greet us, but I was too tired to get pictures. (Now you know I was TIRED if I didn't take pictures. =) Bro. Becker picked us up in the church van. Daddy and Moma and our family each got a guest room at God's Bible School for that first night. The next morning we had a delicious breakfast at my sister Laura's house. Then they took us on our first tour of our house we bought while we were in Colombia. Here we are standing in the living room. From this picture things don't look too bad. But, now the walls and ceiling are all torn out and there is LOTS of work to do before our baby comes!
PLEASE PRAY THAT GOD WILL CONTINUE TO HELP US GET IT ALL DONE!~
~Here we are on the front porch of our home!~
~Our Home Sweet Home!~
~We arrived in the USA on Monday night. On Tuesday my dear Daddy went with Phillip to PA to pick up a Mission Helps van for our family to use. Moma stayed with the kids and I and we had a nice time. This was taken Wednesday night during church at our Christian Nation church. (Because I realized that Daddy and Moma were leaving after church and I hadn't taken any pictures with them, so I snapped this one. =)~
~Thank the Lord we are getting to use that friends' home again while we work on our home to make it live-able. (This same friend had let us use her house the last time we were in the USA.) What a blessing her house is being to our family.
We had Laura and her family over for a quick snack that first Wednesday night.~
Lord willing, Phillip plans to visit our Colombian churches in November and then after we have our baby's passport, we plan on going back to Colombia in January. Please keep our Colombian people in your prayers. Thank you!

~Another delicious cookie recipe~

Here is the recipe for some cookies I made here recently. They are light, and yummy and easy to make!~
~Berry Shortbread Dreams~
(From Best of Taste of Home, the First Ten Years.)
1 cup butter (no substitutes), softened.
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (The recipe called for almond flavoring, but our family doesn't like TONS of almond flavoring, and since there is almond flavoring in the icing, I changed this to vanilla in the cookies.)
2 cups flour
1/3 to 1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam.
Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 to 3 teaspoons water
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
In a mixing bowl, cream butter, and sugar. Beat in extract. Gradually add flour until dough forms a ball. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour, or until easy to handle. (You can make this several days ahead, and keep in 'fridge until ready to use!)
Roll into 1" balls. Place 1" apart on ungreased baking sheets. Using the end of a wooden spoon handle, make an indention in the center of each ball. Fill with jam.
Bake at 350 for 14-18 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove to wire racks to cool. Spoon additional jam into cookies if desired. combine glaze ingredients and drizzle over cookies.
Yield:
About 3 1/2 dozen cookies.
YUM! YUM!

~Scrapbooking pages~

The Lord really helped me and I got all of 2008 and through Aug. 4th, 2009 scrapbooked while Phillip was gone to Argentina (and I worked a couple days after he got back as well.) Thank the Lord, I got about 215 pages scrapbooked in the last couple months. Here are some of my pages.
~Our family in Medellin.~

~Kimberly's birthday~
~Noah's birthday~
~Some skirts I made and sewing that I did.~

~Celebrating Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday.~
~My flowers and note that Phillip gave for Valentine's 2009.~
~Our Sunday dinner when the 4 preachers from our CNC church in Ohio were here for the First Christian Nation Congress in Colombia, March 2009.~


~When I had the ladies' meeting at my house.~
~Easter 2009~
~Bro. Jimmy's birthday, 2009~
~Elijah's 1st birthday.~
~Our family visits the church in Cartagena. (a coastal city, 24 hours away from Bogota.)~
~I did a ladies' meeting there too. Here we are getting the food ready.~

~Our family visiting the ocean there in Cartagena.~
~A triple wedding that we held in the church there.~
~Downtown Cartagena~
~We took a boat ride and visited an island for a few hours.~

~Last year our dear Kelly Becker came to Colombia to be with us a month. She was an ANGEL sent straight to us from Heaven! I would have NEVER made it without her. (In the last 12 days before we flew to the USA, we had to pack, move all of our stuff over and up 3 flights of stairs, unpack and organize, go back and clean and paint the old house, and pack for the USA. All of this with little Elijah coming behind us and undoing what we had just done. =D) Here Kelly is making us delicious Indian Fry bread, for Indian Fry Bread tacos.~
~Our last Saturday in Colombia. The church had a special go-away dinner for our family. It was a very neat time....lots of tears flowing, sad goodbyes, but we were happy to see how God is working here among our dear Colombian friends!~
~Flying to the USA!~

~Comargo Camp, and WHO IS THAT GIRL?~

This week we get to attend our DEAR Comargo Campmeeting! We cannot believe that we get to be here for it again this year! (Thanks to the Lord sending us our surprise baby girl. =) We all LOVE coming to camp! We love the services, the Spiritual uplifting and help we receive, the kids' services and activities, the youth services and activities, I get to cook in the kitchen with some wonderful and hilarious ladies, and get to learn from Grammy the cook! (And many other things we love about camp!)
The other day our Noah said, "Mommy, I don't know which is funner to be at...Gram's house or Comargo camp! (I'm SURE I know what my Moma's answer would be to that one! GRAM'S HOUSE...of course! HA!) Since it hasn't worked out for us to get to go to IHC for several years (THANK THE LORD FOR LIVE STREAMING!!!) I'm sooo glad that our kids have gotten to attend our Comargo camp!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
For some weeks now, our dear Sarah has complained about headaches. We were unsure as to what could be causing them. A friend happened to mention that maybe we should get her eyes checked. We did and she has 20/20 vision! However, she has a astigmatism, which causes her eyes to have to work extra hard when she is working on the computer, or reading, and thus she gets headaches! So, she got to pick out some cute pink glasses to wear during these activities. She was/is sooooo excited! (I think she might even have prayed that she could get glasses. =D) She did NOT want me to post this on my blog with her picture, until her most of her family and friends could see her in her glasses in person! =) So, I was a nice Mommy, and waited! =D

This is Natasha for Aunt Heather because she doesn't have her internet running yet.

Praise the Lord that the Dickinson's arrived home safely with very little complications. Thank you so much for your prayers.
More details to follow.
Natasha~

~A yummy fun cookie recipe~

~Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies~

~Here is the recipe for these yummy cookies I made recently. They are pretty easy and such a delightful treat.~ (And unbelievably, they weren't icky sweet!)
(From Best of Taste Of Home, First Ten Years cookbook.)
1/2 cup butter (no substitutes), softened.
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup baking cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
16 to 18 large Marshmallows
Icing:
6 Tablespoons butter or margarine
2 Tablespoons baking cocoa
1/4 cup milk
1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Pecan halves (I toasted these in the oven for 10 minutes at 350)
In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add egg, milk, and vanilla; mix well! Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; beat into creamed mixture. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes. Meanwhile, cut marshmallows in half. Press a marshmallow half, cut side down, onto each cookie. Return to the oven for 2 minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool.

For icing, combine butter, cocoa, and milk in a saucepan. Bring to a boil; boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Cool slightly; transfer to a small mixing bowl. Add powdered sugar and vanilla; beat well. Spread over the cooled cookies. Top each with a pecan half. Yield: about 3 dozen.
ENJOY!
Our landlady still hasn't fixed our roof. It still drips on my feet on our bed when it rains at night! =( PLEASE help us pray that our things WON'T RUIN WITH WATER AND MOLD while we are gone to the USA!!!!! Thank you!