a steady hand

Everything that has been happening in Haiti is so sad. And for anyone who is over there I sure hope you feel our prayers. Our church supports an orphanage over there called Child Hope International. And I also had an instructor I was very close with in College who was born and raised in Haiti and has her whole family over there at the North Haiti Christian University. If you want to do more please contact either one of these resources. But sometimes I know that you feel like it just isn't enough. That whatever you pray or do is not enough. That is NOT true. I have seen God come through. Don't give up people!

Here are some quotes from the Child Hope Orphanage. I hope the Bill and Sue don't mind me taking pieces of your posts to show God's mighty hand in the praise reports. Don't forget to pray people!

We have been blessed with steady flow of nurses, local doctors and others that have assisted us. And, of course, Brooke and Ashley have been working very hard. Also, many of the MDL kids are putting in a lot of time to care for the injured. But, praise God, no injuries to the kids have occured outside of Daphne who had a wall fall on her and is currently in traction awaiting treatment by a pediatric surgeon due to a broken leg.

I am crying as I type this because we have been so blessed to have everyone here during this time. God is good, always, and His ways are perfect even when we don't have all of the answers.

We also have our dear brothers and sisters from Mission Viejo Christian Church. They have been so phenomenal and supportive. They've jumped right in to help where there is need-no questions asked. A zillion thanks to them and to the people back home that helped send them to us.

We were blessed with a great doctor who showed up to help. He is an orthopedic surgeon. He and his wife lost their home when it collapsed. He lives in our neighborhood and he drove by and saw what was going on at our place and jumped right in. He will be casting little Daph's leg today, Lord willing.

Everyone has pulled together so amazingly well, working endlessly. It is truly Jesus Himself, sustaining us.

Three people accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior last night. Praise Jesus!

The Mission Viejo team has been remarkable and an unbelievable Godsend.

The MDL kids are doing remarkably well

We closed the clinic and said we were unable to help any new people. Someone told me the CNN wanted an interview. We thought if we could get the word out, maybe one of the relief organizations here might hear about our dilemma and find a way to get us supplies. i waited on hold for about 30-45minutes with CNN and they ended up postponing the interview. By the time i made it back to the clinic our doors were open and they were receiving new patients. When i asked what happened, they said an SUV full of Haitian doctors and nurses arrived with supplies. i guess God wants us to stay open -- at least for another day or two (which is how long the supplies may last). Praise God!!!

We got an influx of Haitian doctors and nurses show up to help us. Much needed meds arrived yesterday (right after we'd officially closed the doors to dozens of people waiting outside). We were running out, and then the supplies arrived. Amazing timing, as always.

Daphne finally got her cast yesterday.

People are praying-everywhere.

I haven't seen people pull together like this, EVER. I have been blessed to see what I've seen.

We want to say a very special thank you to those of you in the States helping us coordinate in a way we could never do from here. People like Lucas and Alicia Simmons, the Beck Family, the Bohlingers and so many others that are blogging, Facebooking, Tweeting and whatever else is necessary to help the efforts out hear. Most importantly, thanks for those that are praying and staying on their needs. Haiti was shaken up, not just physically but spiritually. And we need to continually pray that hearts and souls will find Christ through all this.

Our faithful God continues to sustain us and keep us moving forward. Please make it a point to pray daily for all of us here – especially those on the front lines in the triage. We thank you beyond words for all your love, encouragement and prayers. God bless.

All our staff has been amazing. I cannot begin to name all the dedicated missionaries, employees and MDL kids that are sacrificing under such duress to help. I am humbled be their dedication and hearts.

The Haitian people are incredible. They have been very strong, peaceful and completely cooperative with us under a very difficult situation.

Praise God, no patients have passed away.

Friends from the DR have been driving in food shipments of whatever they can find.

Thank you, Jesus, that we can still chuckle in light of such overwhelming circumstances. The joy of the Lord is truly our strength!

UN structural engineers came and inspected all our buildings and gave thumbs to the kids returning to live in the homes.

This has been an absolute blessing and so has been our med team that has faithfully manned the unit since hour one. Hundreds came through. Many lives were saved. All left alive. Amputations occurred. Bones were set. Wounds stitched. God sent doctors, nurses and others to keep this going non-stop 24/7 since Tuesday.

Many have selflessly volunteered to come. Over one hundred. Thank you. We are in the process of filtering through your emails and compiling teams based on priorities.

1:30pm Hurray! The American's are here! Army of L.A. Search and Rescue fireman showed up at our front door.

Right as I was writing “Still no supplies” an army of Los Angeles Search and Rescue Firemen showed up at my front door. Brian Wells, the chief of the team goes to my sending church – King’s Harbor. He just wanted to make sure we were alright and to let us know that we are not forgotten.

Thank you, Lord, that your hand was upon our little make-shift clinic -- that lives were saved and that no one died in our care. Thank you for sending doctors, nurses and others to help make it happen. You are a great and awesome God!

We are relocating our community clinic to the new home and will start-up regular hours again soon.

Today, we received our first rain since the earthquake. It came after we closed our outdoor clinic and after most of the kids’ mattresses were moved indoors. Again, God shows His presence.

A group of our boys who had, just a few days before the quake, went on a prayer and fasting up in the mountains shared that they had just prayed for the safety and well-being of the kids at the orphanage and for God to demonstrate His presence. Wow! Was that prayer ever answered! Their faith humbles me.

Great news – Marval was able to purchase 100 gallons of diesel today. What a miracle! Now we are on the hunt for food. Fritz purchased one large sack of beans and 7 small bags of rice. Praise the Lord! We feel like we have this little village where we send out our best hunters and wait. When they return with their prize we all celebrate! .


With my professor that had her family in Haiti. I know most of her family but one niece was accounted for. I haven't heard recently if they have found her. But it is amazing that God kept the people safe that are known to be safe.

If you need to know what to pray for look here: for recent updates. But the latest please pray for protection for the Orphanage and everyone that works there.

Here are some painting I have of Haiti from a missions trip I took.

our easter

Our Easter weekend was packed full fun of activity. It was really great. But before I get into all of that I want to mention there has been some additions around here. First, Russ' cousin Jeremie and wife Kate had their first little one Aubrie. She is a darling little girl when I get more pictures I will post them here. And also a friend of mine, Donna and her husband Dennis had their second a baby boy. I'm not sure how to spell his name yet so I'll wait to post more when I have some pictures. Congratulations. What a wonderful time to be blessed with a birth at this time of year.

Our weekend started with Good Friday service. We had a wonderful Good Friday service at our church that was very powerful. And then we went out to dinner as a family and then took the rest of the evening relaxing at home. Saturday our church did their annual Easter egg hunt and Veteran's Park in Redondo. They had lots of activities of children singing and dancing. Painting were displayed that they have had their children ministry work on and those that were done by the Visual Arts Team. And story time, hula hoops, bubbles. Plus the Easter egg hunt. Penelope was more into it now then last time. But she was just around 9 months old at the time. They have roped sections for her age group. So the eggs weren't really hidden. But she caught on very quickly that there was candy inside the plastic eggs and if she didn't get them open then she just threw them back on the ground. Well a lot of them didn't open because they were taped with scotch tape closed. So after a while we just picked up the ones she threw down so she had something in her basket.

Here are a couple of pictures of Penelope at the Easter egg hunt.




Here's a picture of her playing with the bubbles afterwards. Lets just say by this time she was done and really needed a nap. But she cut her nap short.



After we went over the a karate place were we celebrated Joey's birthday party. It was lots of fun. All the kids had a blast. You can see some of the pictures here.

The following day, Easter Sunday. We went to Sunrise service with Russ, Penelope, and I and we invited Russ' dad (Pop Pop) to join us. I think he really liked it because he kept saying "I see a tradition starting". And my mom (Grandma Janet) met us there. It was wonderful to have people come to it. It is a lovely service. Our church has it at the same location as the Easter Egg hunt, Veterans Park in Redondo Beach. On one side of the park there is a outside auditorium. And as you sit there you can see the ocean.

Here are a couple pictures that I was able to find online. In the 3 years we have been going I realized I haven't taken any pictures of it. But I have a good excuse it is very early in the morning when we go. The first one is looking from the shore line at the park, to give you an idea how close the park is to the beach. The two white buildings are part of the park. The one that has a mural on it is the back side of the outside auditorium. And the bottom pictures is a picture of the front of the auditorium.





After that our whole gang went out to breakfast afterwards and then Russell and I had children's ministry obligations at the 9 am service at church. Of course at about 4 or 5 in the morning we had rolled out of bed and put on some really warm, really comfortable cloths. I had brought a change for us to look better. But we never really got time to do it. So we showed up on Easter Sunday to church in our sweat shirts and jeans. Yep. You can certainly pick us out from the crowd. But there were some people who had come to both the sunrise service to the 9 am service and we weren't the only ones. Afterwards we went to did some errands to get stuff for the Easter feast and went to Russ' parents house and changed and waited for everyone. But once Penelope woke up from her nap we changed everyone into the "Easter outfits". Yep at 12:30 after church we changed INTO our Easter outfits and took some pictures. Here are some darling pictures of our family, and mostly Penelope.





It was a wonderful Easter feast. We BBQ steak and chicken skewers and had really yummy baked beans, company's potato's (a recipe from Aunt Corkie), and fruit salad. And then for desert we had banana cream pie. I think everyone had a second helping of the pie. It was delicious.

Here's the news...

So...if some of you haven't gotten the many hints from facebook and my blog, I'm expecting. I have tried to tell people, but if I haven't told you yet I'm sorry. I'm 8 weeks pregnant and so far it's going a little better with the nausea then it did with Penelope. It's basically opposite, where before I was most sick in the morning and it would get better through out the day. But now I am most sick in the evening around dinner time. I am hoping that it might be the food triggers that I have had during dinner. Maybe the cheese? So tonight I'm not doing any cheese and we are going to see how it goes. So far I feel pretty well. Hey, if I don't miss any work over the nausea this pregnancy I'm going to figure it was an improvement.



I have already had an ultrasound and as the ultrasound tech said, "my little grains of rice have a blinking light". So he/she has a heart beat. Yay! If you guys can just keep me in your prayers. Pray that there be no complications with this pregnancy like there was with the last one. And the God would protect this little one and keep he/ she safe.

Welcome to our world!

I just wanted to send out some congratulations. Some people close to me have recently had a blessing come into their life.







First, Nate and Hatie Loper gave birth to Caden Elijah Kenyan on
January 23rd weighing 9 lbs 3 oz. The top picture is of first time Grandmother Loper holding the little bundle at one day old. And the second picture is of the proud parents Nate and Hatie. Soon after all the other duties as a new mom, Hatie will update her blog with more information.







Also on January 26th Yvonne and Chris Wong had little girl Caris Elisabeth weighing in at 5 lbs 11 oz. I received more pictures via email but for some reason I am not able to save them to my computer. More pictures to come I'm am sure on their blog.

Where were you?

I have made it a point not to include politics in my blog. But one thing is for sure, we have been able to be apart of history. Something is going to be said in history books about the inauguration of our 44th president. So where were you when the president elect became the president?

I was working at Torrance Memorial. I work in the ICU but I had the opportunity to watch President Obama be sworn in next to a lovely patient of mine. I'm so happy that I was able to share this experience with my patient. He has served this country in World War II and shares the same ethnic background as President Obama. To see how it touched him, moment by moment, was a once in a lifetime experience.

My daughter was at Granna's house, my mother-in-laws. Together in the living room the family watched the inauguration. And forever I will tell Penelope that she clapped along with everyone else on the television. Of course she claps whenever she hears clapping. But there was participation on her end, which is a lot for a 18 month old.

Russell was also at work and was out on the field, driving around the airport. He was able to get bits and pieces on the radio. But we have it DVR'd at home. So I know Russ will be watching it tonight.

How about you, where were you? What were you doing this moment in history?

Also, can I add that I loved the quartet with the violin, piano, cello, and clarinet. It was absolutely beautiful.

~ Our Wonderful Vacation ~

Sorry it has taken me so long to post the pictures of our trip. We misplaced our camera (again)! (We did it once on the trip). It is a nice camera and we spent a pretty penny on it. But it was ALL THOSE PICTURES that were so upsetting to loose. Well check out the slideshow and you can get the point. These are the edited, only good shot ones.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

By the way the camera was in our electronics bag that we had, tucked away in a pocket that both Russell and I had searched through a million times. I'm just glad we found it.

Also some GREAT news!!!! Russell and I bought disney annual passes. I told russell if we had enough money left over from our trip to PA we could buy them and sure enough. That boy does very well on a budget. Without clean cut spending rules, lets just say not so good. So we had to buy a disposible camera for pictures of disneyland and Halloween. So more pictures to come. (So if you guys ever want to come with us to disneyland give us a buzz. At this point we can't get enough of it.)

We had such a great time both in PA and in disneyland. It was a great vacation! Thank you Aunt Corky and Uncle Tom for letting us invade your house, take charge of your schedules, burn your gas in your cars, and giving us a wonderful time and all the other inconviences I'm sure we caused. And thank you Jeremie, Kate, Kyle, Nicole, and Colton for visiting with us and showing us a good time.

It's Arrived!!

In case you haven't gotten the delivery yet. Pampered Chef has arrived.



Here are all the boxes at my door. It was a lot of stuff!

Anyways the big thing with me in hosting a Pampered Chef party is getting new pots and pans. You see my pots and pans were a cheapy set I got for college. They were warped, scratched, the handles had melted to the lids. What, you don't believe me? I took pictures. : ) Now my pots and pans are professional quality, pretty and clean. And the best part they have a lifetime garantee. If they get scratched I just get another one, no charge. How wonderful is that! I was soooo happy at getting my stuff that I unpacked my stuff before everyone else and sang to myself while doing so. I was in my happy place.

a little update about a lot

Well...I feel like I haven't posted in forever. So much has happened. A few major details. I officially quit UCLA. My last day is March 22nd. At the same time I was able to get my old job back at Torrance Memorial and I am already working there.

Penelope is growing and developing in leaps and bounds. She is sucessfully eating solids and we are just trying to start all the different type of foods. She has her first teeth. She got her bottom two at the same time. She just started crawling acouple of days ago, so she still is a little uncordinated. She also is able to pull herself up to a standing position. She hasn't realized she can do it on other items. But we have been trying to show her how by having her hold onto other stable items. I am trying to get pictures of her doing all the new things. I have most of them....I will post them soon.

In addition I got Easter photos of our little girl and will be posting those shortly.

Anyways pictures to come. I promise.

Ambers in the Southland

Well believe it or not I didn't realize how bad all the fires were in our surrounding area until this morning. I have worked through the weekend, and working 12 houir shifts and living 30 miles from work I can loose touch with the rest of life. This morning when I came down stairs I smelt fumes....I kept thinking it smelled like a camp fire. Right before Nicky stopped by I turned on the tv to realize how bad the fires had gotten. Even though there are no ones that are directly by us I realized when I went to get take a shower there was a film of ashes at the bottom of my bathtub. (There is a window in my shower.) Here are some pictures from nasa that were taken today one at 11:35 am and the other at 2:50. Just a little over 3 hours, you can all tell how it is growing so quickly.


How to protect your family against all the smoke

How to save water for the firefighters