This is Our Life

I've realized over the years that there are three things that I need to function normally and stay somewhat sane....sleep, some sense of routine, and the sense of being settled. Take those away over a longer period of time and add sickness, pregnancy, low back pain, and stress of almost every kind, and I just about lose it. We just returned from a week long trip to California for Matt's younger brother, Andy's, wedding. Before I go into some of the highlights of the trip, in addition to the fact that it was probably one of the most beautiful wedding settings I have ever seen, I'm going to describe some of the events that almost brought me to the breaking point. This is only some of the chaos that occurred...there was much more that I won't mention. I will warn you that this includes talking about pee and poo, one of the realities of being a parent, so if you can't handle it you may want to stop reading!

Let me start by going back to the few weeks prior to the wedding. We have been laboring away at clearing out our house of all of the stuff we have been collecting over the last seven years, holding garage sales, and finishing house projects in preparation to put the house on the market. It's amazing how much stuff we can accumulate over that period of time! In addition, we were juggling parenthood, building our support team, and preparing for the California trip. Every night we hit the pillow hard. In fact one night Matt was so tired, he didn't even have the energy to walk up the stairs after putting Blake to bed, so he just crashed on the floor in the downstairs room!

One of our lovely garage sales

Our trip to California began with driving the five hours to Seattle and flying out from there, flying the next day to San Jose, and then driving five hours to the wedding site in a small town called Biggs. Three days in a row of travel was pretty exhausting and tough on the kids (especially nap schedules), and if you've ever flown with kids you know how stressful that can be.

Andy and Jenny were married on her parent's farm in the walnut orchard (beautiful!) and Matt was the best man. Thanks to Jenny's family, we were able to stay with Matt's parents and Andy (his brother) in an extra house on their farm. The house had been uninhabited for a long time and some things we needed were brought in for the sole purpose of this event (furniture, kitchen utensils etc). The night we got there I felt so wiped out that I told Matt....."our life has got to slow down...I'm going to get sick!" Sure enough, the next morning I woke up with a sore throat and it went downhill from there. All four of us were in one room due to space, and I had to try not to cough or sneeze in fear of waking up the kids. The night before the wedding we only slept about 2 hours because we all kept waking each other up. Callie would cry and Blake would pop up in his bed, turn to us and say "whaaaat are you dooooooing?!!!" If I wasn't so tired and sick it would have been comical.

The ceremony site in the walnut orchard 

Before the wedding I spent a considerable amount of time preparing snacks for the kids in hopes that they would be quiet for the ceremony, but despite my efforts, they both were cranky as ever and fussing from the beginning. Just as Jenny was approaching the altar in dead silence, something irritated Callie and she started throwing her milk around, screaming and crying. I quickly picked her up and made my way through the crowd, losing my shoes in the process, and whisked her as far away as possible. In the meantime I realized that Blake, seeing that I was gone, had started to cry. I think at that point I heard some of the crowd start to chuckle. Matt's sweet cousin Jesse then brought Blake to me. With a pounding head, burning sore throat, and running on two hours of sleep, I can't even begin to describe how emotionally and physically drained I felt. Now that both of our kids had disrupted the ceremony and were gone, it proceeded normally and was  beautiful (from what I heard). I was pretty disappointed to have missed the entire thing. The reception was amazing and was full of great food, sparkling lights, and a beaming Andy and Jenny.

Andy and Jenny!

Before the dancing was over the kids were getting pretty tired and cranky, so I took them back to the house to give them a bath and put them to bed. I was ready to crash myself. As I'm running a bath and about to put them in, Callie peed all over me and my dress. Having to ingore the pee trickling down my legs, I quickly washed them (they were almost as dirty as their cousin Abby in the picture below!) and pulled Callie out of the tub. She then peed again all over the floor. After cleaning up I pulled Blake out....all the while Callie is getting into the garbage can and dropping things into my water glass.

The next night the kids started to get sick. Callie wouldn't stop crying in her bed, so we decided to give her some Tylenol. Realizing that we didn't have a dropper or the dose, Matt drove the several miles into town to get a dropper while I had to call my mom for the correct dose (no internet at the house). In addition to the chaos, earlier that evening Blake came out into the kitchen saying that he needed to be changed. We still don't have him potty trained because we have had too many transitions and haven't been home for a long enough period of time (we plan on starting that this week). We then noticed that he had poop down his leg and on his foot and had tracked it all through the living room, hallway, and bedroom. It was also on the wall because he was crouching in the corner! Finding no clean towels or washcloths to clean it up, we also realized there were no more paper towels and we only had two wipes left! AAAAHHHHH! Eventually we thoroughly cleaned everything.

A couple of days later it was time to drive the five hours back to San Jose and leave California. Somehow on the way to the airport we took some wrong turns and were running extremely late. Then in the security line Blake had a major meltdown and started screaming and stomping up and down, which lasted all the way to the gate....people staring at us and making comments the whole way. How embarrassing! To his credit, we had had an exhausting week and he was getting sick. Also along the way we realized that Callie had pooped and of course it had gotten on her clothes. In all the chaos we had forgotten to pack a clean change of clothes (usually we are much more organized), so we found another less dirty set of clothes and put those on. We made it to the gate just as people were boarding.

This doesn't cover all of the difficulties of the trip, but I will say that there were good things about this trip too. Andy and Jenny had the most amazing wedding and everything went smoothly. We were able to spend some quality time with family, Jennie's aunt and uncle put on an amazing barbecue for us with about thirty people and we shared about our ministry, and Matt's sister Jamie and brother-in-law Eric blessed us with a night's stay in a beautiful hotel the night before we left. I tried to focus on the things that we are thankful for. Sometimes we do better about having a good attitude than other times, and this was one of those times that I just didn't do too well. I don't have anything profound to say about all of this or any life lessons that I learned along the way.....sometimes life is just hard and we are just tired. Then we learn of something awful that someone else is going through, like our friend who's little girl is in the ICU and might lose her limbs. It puts things into perspective. We are blessed and God is still good. This is our life right now and I'm a work in progress, striving to praise God through the stress and the hard times.

Cousin Abby playing in the dirt at the reception

Blake and his cousin Zach having a great time on the ride-on tractor

  She loved the slide!

 Blake enjoying his cupcake

Matt on the cherry picker, helping set up for the wedding

Thoughts on a Missionary's Ultimate Sacrifice

Today, two fellow missionaries, a brother and sister in Christ, were laid to rest in the African country of Zambia. Jay and Katrina Erickson were killed in a plane crash on Saturday, leaving behind two little girls almost the exact ages of Blake and Callie. Their friends, family, and the entire missionary aviation community are in a state shock and grief. They had only been flying in Africa since February and it was Katrina's first time off the station since they had arrived. Jay had attended Moody Aviation with Matt and had begun flying for a small mission hospital in Zambia.

Matt and I have had heavy hearts all week as the full weight of this news has sunk in. Thinking about those little girls, it's difficult not to look at our own precious babies as we ponder our future in Indonesia. We have always known the risks, but it's easy to think that it won't happen to us. Fear is such a poison, waiting to creep in and immobilize it's victims. Yet in 2 Timothy it says "For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and of a sound mind (1:7). I think back to when I struggled with my call to the mission field and all of the horrible things that could happen to me or, mostly, to my family. I think of the questions He has asked me over the years as I struggled with my own fear....am I not worth it? Did I not give my life for you? Do you trust me.....trust that I see the big picture and that I cause all things to work together for good? Will you follow me no matter the cost, even if it is great in order to bring others into salvation? Wrestling with these questions brought me to a place of peace and surrender. Yes, Lord, you are worth it.

Jay and Katrina may have wrestled with similar fears taking their two girls to Africa, but they placed their trust and their lives in their loving Creator, knowing that "to live is Christ, to die is gain (Phil 1:21)." We know that just as He promised, He will bring good out of this tragedy and that as believers we are not without hope. We have peace in the fact that this is only our temporary home. We can look forward to the fact that we will get a new, perfect body and that Jesus is preparing a place for us. Jay also had this peace. It seems that God was even preparing him for what was to come. On April 20th he wrote these words on his blog:

Oddly enough, I (Jay) have been pondering the concept of death since arriving at Chitokoloki. Living next door to a bush hospital, we hear quite clearly the wails of mourning with each death. And these occur frequently, being about every other day. In addition, I have been reading through Israel’s wanderings through the wilderness and all the times God’s wrath was poured out such that each time thousands were consumed, bitten, swallowed, or otherwise perished. Still again, I have been reading Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis, which though a fictional work, deals philosophically with death. Even in eating meat here when I saw the creature alive that morning reminds me of the topic.



I did not plan the correlation, but it caused me to think along these lines and realize again in a new way that there is nothing sad about the death of a Christian. The only sadness (and I do not intend to belittle this aspect) is in the loss of companionship by those left behind. And yet, to contrast this, the level of tragedy is so vast for the passing of an unbeliever. To borrow from physics, it seems the “equal and opposite reaction.”


It warms my heart to hear the frequent and fervent preaching of the Gospel here. Perhaps it is the real presence of death here that we seem so surgically removed from in the USA which is the motivation. At any rate, I hope it will inspire me to get over those inhibitions which so easily hinder me from speaking.


I will close with a quote from C.S. Lewis which is at the foundation of my thinking: “You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” And I know that when this body dies, my soul will get a new one.

*Please keep the families of Jay and Katrina in your prayers, especially their sweet little girls as they return from Africa to live with relatives in Seattle.

Setbacks

Unfortunately since we arrived back in Spokane we have been hit with some frustrating setbacks. The day before we left Arizona, my (Ellie) back went out and I could barely move. We weren't sure if we'd even be able to fly home but we forced it because we really needed to get back. I won't lie, it was a horrible day of travel. I was in excruciating pain the entire time, almost passed out at check in, and Callie had to miss a nap and was pretty difficult, but we made it. Since then I've been bedridden for several days without much improvement. Thankfully my parents came the day after arriving home and have been a huge help.

In addition, today was supposed to be the day to tackle our house/yard projects in preparation to sell and we woke up to rain! People from the church came to help but there wasn't much we could do since most of the projects that need to be done are outside. We will get it all done when it gets done I guess. In the meantime we need to just trust that God has good reasons for all of these things.

We could really use prayer for healing for my back. It's hard not to feel completely discouraged as this has been an ongoing issue. I'm still working with a physical therapist to build my core strength, but the fact that I am pregnant doesn't help the issue (the hormones cause the joints/ligaments to be loose).

Please also continue to pray that we can overcome the obstacles to selling the house and moving out, and for peace during this time.

Thank you to all who are a part of this journey with us, and for your prayer and encouragement!

Leaving Arizona and Next Steps

Our time here in Arizona is coming to a close and we are gearing up for the chaos that awaits when we get home (I'll explain below). Though we are feeling ready to be back in Spokane again, we have had an awesome time. Our main goal of the trip was for building our ministry team but we made a vacation out of it too. The weather has been gorgeous, clear skies and average temps in the nineties or higher.

On Wednesday we will board a plane back to Spokane and start a series of some pretty major events over the next several weeks. We had a realtor friend come to look at our house and after his advice and some prayer, we feel that this is the best time to put our house on the market. One thing that we hadn’t anticipated however was moving out before it sells, but he felt that it would be too difficult with young kids (and the small size of our house) to live there while on the market. I had wondered how we would possibly be able to keep it clean with two little ones and toys everywhere, but it never crossed my mind that moving out early would be the solution. In ways we are definitely ready to be free of the burden of the house….keeping up the huge yard, house projects, finding someone to house sit every time we have to leave….it has definitely been stressful, but it’s also very emotional for us. We moved into this little house right after getting married, got our first puppy, put hours and hours of love and care into it, lost our beloved kitty Timon, and had both of our amazing children while living in this house. There are so many memories attached to it! We knew we’d have to let go eventually, but it’s coming sooner than we expected. Nevertheless, we still feel that this is the right timing and have spent a considerable amount of time in prayer about it.

This coming weekend we’ll have a work day to work on house projects to prepare it for the market. My parents will be coming to help. Matt’s parents arrive from Rwanda next week, we are gearing up for the Liberty Lake Community sales the following weekend to sell a lot of our stuff before moving, and we plan on moving out and hopefully putting the house up for sale by the time we leave for our California/Seattle trip June 22^nd. It’s going to be a whirlwind! As far as where we will be living, an amazing couple from Bible study has offered for us to live in their spacious daylight basement until we are ready to leave for Indonesia.

Will you pray with us for peace during all of the transitions and that we’ll be able to get it all done before we leave?

Please also pray that God would be preparing the perfect buyer for our house and that it would sell quickly.
  

The view every morning from our back patio





Swimming in my cousin Michelle's pool!



Blake playing in the water at the Fountain Hills Splash Pad

  

Blake and daddy at the Country Club Pool

  

One day we went to an adorable train park they have in Scottsdale



Riding the little train





Arizona

I never realized just how beautiful the desert could be. The palate of colors (browns, oranges, and pale pinks) that God used to paint the landscape here is so unlike the greens and blues that make up the Northwest…and yet it’s every bit as beautiful. There is a foot-long lizard that greets me every morning at the same time from the kitchen window as he crawls up into the sun to recharge himself. We haven’t run across any snakes yet, though we’ve been warned to keep our porch light on at night to discourage them from curling up on the doorstep, so we know they’re around. And I’ve never been in a place where the “cold” tap water comes out at room temp or warmer! Though every day has been over 100 degrees we are enjoying the heat.


So far we have met with a few churches, spent a day hanging out with Ellie’s cousin and brother (and fam), and explored the local area a bit. In the next week and a half we have a couple small groups who have invited us to share, and I (Matt) hope to reconnect with some old friends from Rwanda who live in the area!

Though Blake is enjoying this adventure he has asked us every day when we are going back home to “Pokane Wasington.” He’s been through a lot of travel in the last year and he’s been a trooper through it all, but it still breaks our hearts to hear him long for home like that. The folks who are graciously letting us use their home down here have many grandkids of their own so the house has all the toys a kid could want. Out in the back there is a large turf putting green that Blake has been enjoying immensely! Just down the road there is a large splash park, and a man-made lake that boasts the largest fountain jet in the world. It spouts off about every hour and it is quite impressive to see.

So as we spend one more week broiling ourselves in the desert sun please pray with us that the Lord continues to open doors for us down here as well as back in Spokane. And if you happen to know of any fun/interesting/exciting (kid friendly) things to do down in the Phoenix area shoot us an email!

Surprising News!

I believe it's time to share the news....looks like we will be taking three kids to Indonesia! We recently found out that we are expecting, and after an ultrasound we were shocked to discover that I am four weeks farther along than we thought, putting me at 13 weeks and out of the first trimester already! The due date is October 27th. I will be honest, we desired to have another baby before leaving, but didn't really expect it to happen. I am still nursing Callie and we have such a short window of time left here. We have always wanted more than 2 kids though and have desired that they be close together in age. With my history of pre-term contractions, we didn't want to think about having another one soon after arriving in Indonesia (not too sure about the medical care there). So, we gave it to God.

Now honestly, I can't even imagine how difficult this will be and I fully admit that this is crazy!!! However, looking at the big picture of what will be taking place in our lives, this is exactly what we wanted. As hard as it might be in the beginning, we believe this was God's will and part of his perfect plan for our lives. He knew this was going to happen long before we did, and what a miracle that it did happen!

Some of you  may be wondering..."will this change your timeline for leaving?" The answer is no.  The next available training for us (required mountain flying and maintenance standardization) is offered next February.  This is approximately 10 weeks of training and will allow us to leave for Indonesia next May.  Some of you may have heard us talk about a January departure for Indonesia, but that was based on an aggressive schedule that became clear early on that it wasn't realistic.  We're exactly on track with where God wants us to be.  He knew all along that we would be having this baby and need a few months of recovery after the baby was born before we leave the country!  It's important to note though that we need to be approaching at least 90% support by the end of this year in order to attend that training in February. That is a little more than double our current support level, so please pray with us that God continues to lead people to join our team this year! If not, then we would be delayed several more months and have to attend Spring or Summer training.  If you are considering joining our financial team, please don't wait! If you are unsure how to get started, send us an email or facebook message, or go to our website www.maf.org/scheer. Thanks to all who have been so supportive and encouraging during this time.

Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend

Saying goodbye to our "old friend" :)

It's funny how we can get so attached to our vehicles. As we give up our van today we almost feel as if we're losing a family pet! So many memories and good trips were had in that van. You served us well little white van, and we'll miss you... :)

We want to share how this happened and how God turned a seemingly bad situation into a true blessing.

After our accident a few weeks ago we took our van into a body shop expecting the dents to be fixed and the van to be as good as new. After all, the damage was pretty minor. But the insurance company declared the van "totaled," and now we had a decision to make. Did we keep the van and take a lesser payment from the insurance, as well as have to fix the bumper, pay to get a "roadworthy" inspection, and pay to re-license the vehicle? Or did we take the full payment from insurance, give up the van, and be left without a vehicle?

God knew all along what was happening, and he already had a new van ready for us! We shared our ministry in a local church a couple Sundays ago, and a couple we met that morning offered us the use of their 2004 Venture until we leave for Indonesia!!! We are so grateful for them and their willingness to sacrifice their van (they were going to sell it this summer) in order to help us in our time of need. We are continually amazed at the generous people we have met on this journey of preparing to serve in Indonesia. God is growing our prayer team, our financial support team, and is blessing us in huge ways through faithful people we hardly know, but who want to have a part in spreading Christ's love. It's a beautiful picture of God's design for the body of Christ. All of us have different gifts, different backgrounds, different talents, but we are all unified by our common love for Christ and what he has done for us, and we use those gifts for the benefit of others. So thank you to all of you for your prayers, for your gifts...we are humbled and blessed and give all of our praise and thanksgiving to the One who deserves it all!

The BEAUTIFUL 2004 Venture we'll be using to finish out our time here in the States.

Thank you!!! (You know who you are!)