St. Patrick's Day

I am not sure why I have always really liked this day.  Maybe it is the little bit of Irish blood I have, or perhaps just that I love to celebrate even on "small" holidays.  Our family had a wonderful day remembering the life of St. Patrick and those that have given their lives for the furtherance of the gospel.  Of course, the day had to be all green.  The kids decided to sleep in green pajamas so as to avoid getting pinched first thing in the morning!  Smart - because I would for sure do it, and they know it!!  LOL!  For breakfast we had cinnamon roll pancakes with green icing; lunch I tried to make healthy to redeem all the sugar eaten earlier, so I made a spinach salad served with homemade chips; dinner was a traditional "Shamrock Stew" with "Irish Soda Bread"; snacks in-between included chocolate cupcakes with pistachios, green popcorn and the traditional green jello with fruit salad!  We had a lot of fun with games throughout the day.  We had a treasure hunt, a puzzle to solve and a guess who holds the "true treasure" mystery game.  We also spent time in song, prayer and thanksgiving.  I love taking the small moments and using them to celebrate the One who is worthy of all PRAISE!  AT 

Live it WELL

Matt and I have been looking for new music.  It has almost been 3 years since we left our beautiful home state of Texas.  We truly miss our wonderful worship leaders.  They were always so great to keep worship fresh, moving and alive.  Recently, God has really been laying on my heart the concept of how to live the life that He has called me to well.  Not just live the life, but live it WELL.  What does that look like, and how can I make my time spent in personal worship more fruitful spurring me on to life that is lived "well"?  John 10:10b says, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."  He does not just want to give us life.  When we are born into His Spirit we are given the opportunity to have a life of abundance....a life of well living.  Please don't hear me saying that I am jumping on the "health and wealth" wagon; no my eyes have been open to too many other things over the past few years.  I believe God does heal; He does provide and He does desire to give to us in abundance, but the number one thing He wants to do is receive glory.  How will He receive glory from my life? 1 Chronicles 16:29 says, "Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come before Him; Worship the LORD in holy array."  I am discovering that if I am actively seeking to give Him glory, my life will be  well.  You may remember the hymn "It Is Well with My Soul" by Horatio G. Spafford.  If you have time click on the link for the song and history of this beautiful hymn.  I am always moved by people like Mr. Spafford that despite walking through tragedy after tragedy they still remain totally sold -out to serving the Lord and giving Him glory.  Their life is "well" despite deep loss.  They are alive in Christ.  For those of you that are not "hymn" people.  In our looking for new music; we have recently come across some songs of a new and up-in-coming artist.  His name is Hunter Thompson.  I believe this one is written by Matt Stinton and Bethel Music, but Hunter Thompson is performing it here: This is what you do.  Though not as poetic as a hymn,  I am challenged by the simple phrase - "This is what You do; you make me come alive!"  I do desire to be ALIVE in Him and live this life WELL for His glory!!  AT
PS: The boat picture is just one of the cool things we get to see crossing the Bosporus each week.  I put it in this post because of the hymn reference.   

            

New Beginnings

On February 10th, my precious daughter became my sister in Christ. She has questioned and struggled for over 2 years now. It has been difficult to watch. She has at times said, "I am a believer." Then at other times said, "I just don't know God." Being in a believing home that is actively involved in sharing the good news, she of course "knew" all the answers. As she has grown in her understanding, I think it has caused her to question the commitment and confessions of her past. I also believe that out of the 4 of us in our family she struggled the most emotionally living in the east. At times it was a very crushing road for her. One of my favorite parts of my day is reading individually with the kids before their bed time. Grace and I have been reading a book of parables by James Dobson. When we came to the parable of the Wedding Feast, I read the parable and then talked about how God had invited everyone to join Him but that some people chose not to accept the invitation. At this point, Grace began to cry and say that she had not accepted the invitation and did not know God. I asked what she meant and she stated that she had known for a while that there was an emptiness in her but was afraid to tell us because we might be mad that she had been saying for so long that she believed but in fact had not. My heart broke as we discussed that I was not angry and wanted more than anything else in my life for her to know for sure that she had trusted Christ with her eternity. We knelt beside her bed, and she gave her life to Christ. What a weight came off of both my precious girl and her daddy to know for certain that she had entrusted herself to the everlasting arms of the one and only Savior of the universe. The next day, she approached Amy and wanted her to cut bangs from her all one length hair. She wanted a new look on the outside to show some of her new inside. When I came home from work, it was a wonderful surprise. It has been a pleasure to watch her over the last few days. We can all tell quite a difference in her continence. We realize that as she gets older she will go though times of doubt; however, we are confident the Father will work in these times to grow her faith and make her stronger. MT

Let it snow; let it snow; let it snow...

Over the last 8 days the Travis family has seen more snow than ever before in our lifetimes. (well, besides vacation spots) The heavens have simply opened up and dropped inches and inches of beautiful white, dry, fluffy powder. It has been a treat to play in it and allow the Father to endear our hearts to our new home. It is interesting how something so "simple" as weather can remind us of how amazing our God is! In Central Asian culture, it is believed that if you get cold you will become ill. Interestingly enough, from my widows this week I have watched so many people leaving their houses layered-up and bundled for Arctic weather stop and look around them to see if anyone is looking and then take a quick handful of the cold delight and throw it at something. Playing in the snow allows even the most "proper" and "dignified" of people to remember the gaiety of their childhood and feel the purity of creation. I am reminded of the hymn, "In His Time". I love the words to this song: IN HIS TIME, IN HIS TIME; HE MAKES ALL THINGS BEAUTIFUL IN HIS TIME; LORD, PLEASE SHOW ME EVERYDAY; AS YOU'RE TEACHING ME YOUR WAY; AND I'LL DO JUST WHAT YOU SAY; IN YOUR TIME. (Verse 2) IN YOUR TIME, IN YOUR TIME; YOU MAKE ALL THINGS BEAUTIFUL; IN YOUR TIME; LORD, MY LIFE TO YOU I BRING; MAY EACH SONG I HAVE TO SING; BE TO YOU A LOVELY THING; IN YOUR TIME. Lord, I am asking you today just like the white snow has made everything beautiful that you will bring us to love this new city. Change our hearts to be as pure as the snow in our service and witness to those around us. May the life that we bring to you be a lovely thing in your time. AT

The 12:1 Adventure continues...

As stated in my last post, if you are interested in getting other sources of our family updates you are welcome to email us. I go into more details on our moves and other specifics. I know it seems like I keep posting about moving...well, it's because we have now lived in 6 different homes since January of 2009. In that regard, it has been a crazy journey so far! Recently, in my daily "read through the Bible" assignment, I came again to Genesis chapter 12. This chapter is, of course, special to our family because 12:1 is the promised verse that the Father gave to us when He called us to this adventure. Over the course of our early years of marriage the Father gave us several 12:1 verses from scripture that allowed us direction and encouragement. (At the beginning of our 12th year of marriage He finally sent us overseas....crazy right! God's timing is amazing.) I love how He speaks to us through His Word. As I was reading the Genesis passages again, I was struck by something new. In 12:6-9 it talks about how on Abraham's journey to find the place the Lord wanted him to settle he actually, "passed though" the land, "proceeded from their" and then "journeyed on". Well, that seems like a strange way to "arrive" at a destination. I love our new TomTom GPS. You type in where you want to go; you follow the directions; then in short time you hear the words, "you have arrived at your destination." If you do not follow the directions specifically, you hear, "when possible make a U-turn". In the Genesis account, the Lord tells Abraham, "this is going to be your land"; so Abraham builds an altar. I'm guessing that at that time, even though it is not recorded, that the Lord says something like, "there is a famine and the Canaanites are powerful right now, so you can't stay in the land I have promised". Abraham has to then go into Egypt. In the next few verses, the Bible only records the part of Abraham being fearful and lying about Sarah being his sister, but later in chapter 13 we see a comparison of the promised land to Egypt. God had reasons for Abraham traveling to Egypt...not just to escape the famine. God did not say, "Do a U-turn when possible"; nor does the Bible record God saying, "in 200 meters you will need to do a right turn"; "you have 5 minutes until you reach your destination." TomTom is always so good about that! AND YET our God is even better to us than TomTom. God could have kept Abraham in Ur...waited a few more years to call him if he wanted to simply take him directly to the new land, but we see Abraham moving around quite a bit in the process of settling into his "new land". In this moving and journeying process God was teaching Abraham to trust and depend on Him. SOOOO, I guess you might see where I am going with this. I am VERRRRRYYY hesitant to suggest that we have "arrived" at the "land" the Lord has promised us, because that has not been revealed to us; however, we can look back on the adventure thus far and see why the Lord had us journey through different cities. We are learning step-by-step to trust and to depend on Him. Our prayer is that we are allowed to now put down a few roots and see the multiplication of our family and the family of God, but we know that HIS ways are perfect so we are simply remaining faithful to the call. AT

He cares for the birds of the air...

As many of you already know, our family is in transition again. If you don't receive our monthly prayer emails or quarterly "snail-mail" letters, and would like to, please send us your addresses. To briefly catch someone up, Matt has taken a job based out of London. After much prayer, we have decided to move to Istanbul, Turkey to make travel and the job overall more "do-able" for the family. The kids and I have spent this first week of the new year looking for a new apartment while Matt is training in England. One day this week, after a rather exhausting fruitless day, we decided to take a stroll through a park. While I was sitting on a bench (feeling rather sorry for myself and beginning to grumble!), I noticed a very bright green bird in a tree. Startled, I asked another woman at the park if she knew anything about birds. To my surprise, she said that actually she loves to come to this particular park because she is almost always sure to spy wild parrots. According to her, a truck load of tropical birds over 10 years ago were being transported to Istanbul's botanical gardens when they escaped. (I later confirmed the report with this article http://www.todayszaman.com/news-191234-wouldnt-you-like-to-discover-istanbuls-secret-garden.html.) I found this very interesting. The birds do find refuge at the botanical gardens, but they have also settled all over the city. Why did the birds not try to travel back to their homeland? The climate has to get downright miserable for them, and they surly have had to make adjustments to their eating and other natural habits. In my moment of pondering, the Holy Spirit pulled from my memory the verse that says, "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" (Matt. 6:26) Yes, yes I am more more valuable in God's eyes! What an encouragement!! no, NOOOO I do not want to move again. I do not want to "settle" again. I do not want to adjust to new foods and new weather. However, I know in my heart that God has an amazing plan, and I truly desire to be used by HIM. I guess that if a simple creature like a bird can trust God to provide, I can as well. Do I imagine that it will be easy? - NO, but here we go again off on a new road to this adventure! Father, help me remain humble, teachable and useable for your glory!! AT

The Christmas Tree

One of the things that I love about teaching my kids at home is that I am learning so much alongside them. I was never really that interested in history & science when I was in school. I can list a whole host of reasons why, but then I would just be shifting blame and complaining. I think it is better to say that as years come and go, I believe that my tastes in many things have evolved. I have had to read many different types of books for work and for the kids. I believe it has stretched me in so many good ways. In the past, I took what people said about things that happened in history as fact. I had not researched it for myself and was not interested in doing so. If it sounded believable, I let it pass as truth. I know that was a big mistake on many levels! One of those subjects that I let this occur in was the history of the Christmas tree. I had been told that the decorating of Christmas trees was really a pagan practice meant to worship tree spirits. Christians tried to justify participating in this practice by changing some of the ornaments to represent Christ. Over the years, I have allowed this wrong information to rob me of some of the joy of the season. I am so thankful that this year in the study of the early Church I have learned the truth. I am going to briefly outline what I learned: Winfrid, better known as St. Boniface, was an Anglo-Saxon Englishman in the early 700s. His first assignment as an ordained priest was to the pagans of Freisland, Germany. Sadly, his first experience on the mission field was unsuccessful and discouraging. However, the Father sent him again to Germany...this time to Hesse. It was very common for the people of Hesse to worship trees and other things in nature. As it is recorded, one day, Boniface was traveling through the woods and came upon a group of people ready to sacrifice a young prince to the "gods" of a massive (6 foot across) oak tree. Boniface "intervened" it says to rescue the prince. He cut down the tree. He is quoted as saying, "How stands your mighty god? My God is stronger than he." Now that he finally had the attention of the people of Hesse, he began using the example of a fir tree (evergreen), common in the area, to share of the one true God and His everlasting love for them. Slowly the symbol of the evergreen tree and God's gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ began to move through Europe and eventually to the Americas. Now, I challenge you not to take my word for it! Research it for yourself and enjoy your celebration of the Gift of Christ!! For the first time this year, I am looking at our tree in a whole new light. I am also looking for opportunities to share the everlasting love of Christ. AT Pictures: This is how we are remembering the Christmas tree and participating in "Advent" this year. The kids made chocolate Christmas Trees. They get to eat one chocolate per day.

Not Pictured: We are still lighting our Advent candles each Sunday and reflecting on the coming of Christ as well as reading a "Christmas Book" each night. (click here to read more about these traditions)