~Our Colombian Independence Day~

Friday, July 20th, was Colombia's Independence day.  At last minute after church on Thursday night, I invited Pastor Jimmy and Sis. Farly and their family over for a grill out.  So, here's some fun pics of our time celebrating Colombia! =)
~ I had seen these FUN blue and white polka dotted shoes (flats) and WANTED them before 4th of July...but I didn't want to spend the money, so I didn't get them!   However, I NEVER forgot about them.  =) When Bro. Smith and Stephanie left, they snuck and gave me money to give to Phillip "for being such a good host" and gave money to Phillip to give to me "for being such a good hostess!"  =)  So, when Phillip gave me the money I KNEW exactly what I wanted to buy with that money. 
I didn't get to get these shoes in time for our Independence day, but I got them in time for Colombia's Independence day.  =)~

~We made a Colombian flag out of Mango, grapes, and strawberries! =) ~

~The 3 cooks in the kitchen.  (L to R: Heather, Judy (Sis. Farly's sister), and Sis. Farly.~

~Some of the "chefs" upstairs out on our patio.~

~Judy and Rual's 3 sons David, Nicolas, and Serigo, with Noah.~

~Grilling up some GOOD meat.~

~Some GREAT chefs.~

~They taught us how to grill Plaintain (Platano) like a large banana.  It was good!~

~Our table.  Our Colombian flag (covered in plastic) was the tablecloth.~

~My red, yellow, and blue Colombian flowers.  =) ~

~The grilled platano.~

~Everyone took turns wearing the boys cowboy hats! =) ~

~Having fun and making memories!~

~Bro. Jimmy's Dad playing Bop-it!~

~Cute Mary tries out the hat.~

~Then later we went downstairs and ate ice cream for dessert.~

~Bro. Jimmy's Mom made us some yummy Colombian Tinto.  (dark sweetened coffee.) Here Judy and Sis. Sofia are serving up the Tinto RICO (YUMMY Coffee!!) ~

~I loved this pic...see the steam rising up from the coffee?~

~We had a wonderful day together.  Lots of eating, Lots of laughing, Lots of playing games, and Lots of fun with our Colombian FAMILY! =) ~

~Miracle Monday~

You probably recall me talking about our pastor's wife in Medellin not having a washing machine. We have figured that for around $300.00 she could get a nice Colombian style washing machine.
PRAISE THE LORD $120.00 has been given toward getting a washer for Sis. Alba.  If anyone else feels it on their heart to give to this worthy cause; Gifts can be sent to our support address in Ohio and marked "to help buy a washer."  If the anything extra comes in, it will be given to help those in need here.
Phillip Dickinson
P.O.Box 511
Maineville, OH 45039
Thank y'all and may God RICHLY bless!
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Back in 2004 when we felt that God was calling us to go to Colombia as missionaries we had 2 GIGANTIC yard sales and sold nearly all we owned.   Now, I'm not asking you to feel sorry for us, but SELLING OUR STUFF was one of the hardest things I've had to do.
(SIDE NOTE: I personally would recommend to any new missionary to sell the things you don't really care about, but THINK HARD and SAVE/STORE the things that mean a lot like some wedding gifts, antiques, etc.)   We did store some things, but sold others that I WISH we would have kept.
Anyways, during that process, one of the HARDEST things for me to sell was our PRECIOUS, GORGEOUS, Amish built, 9 1/2' table, with 12 matching chairs, and a matching deacons bench to seat 2/3 people.  It was VERY HARD for me to sell that for as you know I have company over A LOT, and I treasured my table and chairs which Jesus had created a miracle to give us.  But, I knew I couldn't get it back to Ohio to preserve it and in the dry heat of AZ it wouldn't have been a good idea to store it, so we sold it.  I remember telling Phillip that I was trusting Jesus to get us another table and chairs some time down the road.
Well, last week my sister called and left a message on my phone wanting to know if I had opened my "Christmas in July?"  I couldn't imagine what she was talking about.  So, I went to check my email to see if there were a message from her.  There was!!!!  She had received a text from someone wanting to know if she knew of anyone who needed a dinning room table. She said that YES she did!  (She needed one and she knew that I needed one!)  When they got the table they put it in their dinning room.  This table had been in that family for years and in order to strengthen it, they had screwed all of the 4 leaves into place.  So since the leaves couldn't come out, the table was too long for Laura's dinning room. =(  (I'm praying that Jesus provides another table for Laura and her family!)
So, she and her family took LUGGED THE HEAVY TABLE over to our house and she said that it fits PERFECTLY in my dinning room.  She said that even with large chairs on the ends of our table, there was still plenty of room to walk around!
Laura said that it's as if this table was JUST MADE for our dinning room.  =) =) =)
~So...here's the beautiful table that Jesus has provided for us...and ~

~I'm excited to see how He's going to provide our dinning room chairs some day too.  =)
Here's my sweet sister Laura with our new table.    Laura has eaten at this table and said that it will seat 15 or more people.
I thought y'all would enjoy hearing the story of how God gave us another table that's just RIGHT for our dinning room He just provided in 2010 too!  =)
 It PAYS to serve Jesus...not just in material things He provides...but MAINLY in the PEACE that He gives in our hearts, once we have surrendered EVERYTHING to Him!  Isn't JESUS AWESOME?!!~
One HAPPY..........

~Fun Food Friday...P.B., choc. chip cookies...(and pics of the Smiths!)~

I got this recipe from this website when I googled Peanut Butter Choc. Chip cookies.   And I quote....
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"These cookies are the absolute BEST peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. Ever.
No, seriously, they are!  =)
These cookies are melt in your mouth, crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder a pinch of salt
1 cup chocolate chips
Preparation:
First of all! I recommend doubling the recipe. You won’t regret it. =)
Preheat oven to 375ºF (175ºC). Line a cookie sheet or two with parchment.
Cream butter and sugars until creamy, then add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add Peanut butter and continue to beat until combined. Add flour, baking powder and salt and stir to combine. Add chips and stir again. Drop small spoonfuls of dough onto parchment (you should get a dozen per sheet). Bake 12 minutes or until just golden. Remove from oven and allow to rest on the sheet 1 minute before removing with a spatula. Serve with gallons and gallons of milk. :D
If you have kids, hide a stash for yourself, because these only lasted 2 days in my house. And I doubled the recipe. I had 3 cookies out of about 6 dozen that were baked."
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~Here's the picture I took of my cookies (made from this recipe) that I served to Bro. Smith and Stephanie and my family.  They were good and we enjoyed them.  And as Always....Enjoy!~

~On Monday after 6 days of classes and services, we were all EXHAUSTED!  Thrilled with what Jesus had done, but very tired.  Poor Bro. Smith and Stephanie had only seen the tad of Bogota that they saw when they came from the airport, and the route to and from the church.  I don't even know if they knew that we were surrounded by the beautiful Andes mountains.  So, we wanted to take them souvenir shopping and to see more of Bogota on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning before they left.  Our dear Friends Bro. Erdmin and his family wanted to come over on Monday to visit with the Smiths.  So, here they are visiting....and then....~

~Stephanie gave us a gift of money to buy us all lunch!  Thanks, Stephanie!  So we enjoyed...~

~a yummy typical Colombian lunch together!~

~Then we took the Smiths to buy some souvenirs at a neat market near a mall.  We came home and walked to another mall near us to buy some ice cream toppings, and some Oreos and a few more souvenirs/typical candies for the Smiths to take back.  While Stephanie, Kimberly, and I were shopping, Phillip and Bro. Smith let our 3 middle kids play in this neat "sandbox" that was free.  Mary was sleeping in the stroller.~

~Walking home to enjoy some ice cream in our house.~

~Tuesday morning we got up and ran to take them to Monserrate mountain to see a neat view of Bogota.  Here we are before we went up in the gondola.~

~Here are some of us in the Gondola.  It's a pretty cheap price per person to go up and come back down in the Gondola, and so it's something fun we like to do with our visitors. (as if you haven't noticed. =) ~

~Elijah and Noah riding up the mountain.~

~All of us at the top.~

~Phillip and Bro. Smith~

~There's a Neat HUGE market up on the mountain that sells LOTS of things!  We were SURPRISED to find out that sometimes their prices are CHEAPER prices than down below in Bogota!  Here's Bro. Smith, Stephanie, and a little Blond haired Elijah.  Here they lovingly call someone with blond hair, "Mono"...meaning Monkey!  I think it's a pretty appropriate name for our Elijah. =) ~

~While we were shopping around Stephanie said, "Sis. Heather look, these are the 2 Mexican guys that were with the Mariachi group that sang at Kimberly's Quinceanera!"  Sure enough there was Jeanette the leader of the group and she had brought her 2 Mexican friends up to see Monserrate. (One of her friends was taking our picture.)   So, we got some pictures together.
(Some friends of Pastor Jimmy had paid for this same group to sing for Bro. Jimmy's birthday 3 years ago or so.  Jeanette had passed out her cards and I had saved her card knowing that I wanted to do something for Kimberly's 15th birthday years down the road. =)  We had a nice visit together.~

~We found a fun spot up on the mountain to eat our lunch. We sat by a picture window...with a BEAUTIFUL view of the Andes mountains behind us. ~

~We were Happy...for we were finally going to eat!~

~2 cute "cowboys" that I found to take a picture of.  =)~

~Sarah, Stephanie, and Kimberly with the huge city of Bogota behind them.~

~Kimberly and Sarah with the beautiful Andes behind them.~

~Stephanie with Bogota in the background.~

~It got so COLD and WINDY up there on that mountain that in the short hours that we were up there we drank hot chocolate, cafe' con leche (coffee with lots of milk), and TINTO...which is black sweetened coffee.  =)   Stephanie took this picture of my sweetheart and I hugging to keep warm. (It was a fun excuse! ;-) ~

~Drinking our coffee with milk before we went back down on the Gondola.~

~Mary and Phillip in the gandola.~

~Then we ran home and dropped off some things and walked to Bro. Jimmy and Sis. Farly's house for a DELICIOUS supper and a WONDERFUL evening/mini service with them and their girls and Bro. Jimmy's parents!~

~After eating their YUMMY supper...we sang choruses around the piano together, Bro. Smith encouraged/admonished all of us parents, and we had a wonderful season of prayer for our young people!  After all...our kids are our ONLY "things" we can take with us to Heaven.  ~

~I snapped this fun picture of DEAR Bro. Jimmy's parents walking with Stephanie!  I don't know HOW we are going to say goodbye to all of these DEAR Colombian people when it's our time to move to Argentina!  They have opened their arms and hearts and have accepted us like their own family...and we will leave a HUGE part of our hearts here with them when we go.  Of course, we plan on working with the pastors and churches here for years to come (traveling back and forth, teaching, praying, etc.), but feel that God wants us live in Argentina for the rest of our short years living outside of the USA.  For when Kimberly gets near college age, we feel that we NEED to be with her in the USA to help her make some of the most IMPORTANT decisions of her lifetime!  (College, friends, mate, etc.)  (But we still plan to work outside of the USA for years to come, by traveling back and forth to visit our people/churches.)  So, after we get our Colombian Residencies that we are working on now (so that we can come and go into Colombia as we need to)...we plan on moving to Argentina to work for Jesus there. ~

~And then on Wednesday, it came down to that awful time when we had to say goodbye to the Smiths!  Won't Heaven be WONDERFUL when we don't have to say anymore goodbyes?!  Oh, I PLAN to make it! =)
We had such a wonderful 9 days with the Smiths and feel like they are our family too! =) THANK YOU, Bro. Smith, and Stephanie, for ALL y'all did for our people and our family!~