It's A New Season

Hi Everyone,

Well, Dess just blogged last night about our adventures in eyeglasses. I figured i'd give you a bit of an update of the last week. It's been pretty intense and tiring for us, so you must want to know what we've been up to.

Last week Friend Ships held their first annual Disaster Response Training. About 50 people from around the United States congregated in Lake Charles, LA to participate in this training. The training consisted of many lectures and some practical work shops. Dess and i both got to teach in a work shop. We had 2 hours to teach about our different topics and then we got to repeat it 4 more times because the people had the opportunity to attend 5 of the 7 work shops available. Dess' work shop was on disaster response radio broadcasting. After hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Dess' voice could be heard on 107.9 FM as she pronounced public service announcements and played her rocking gospel and hip-hop music. So, she was the perfect candidate for teaching this course. She was able to create the atmosphere of a mock radio station and had the participants speak over loud speaker to get the feel. Dess did an awesome job and many of the people who came to the training spoke highly of Dess and said she had the perfect personality for it (and that was even before they knew i was married to her!!!).

I did the work shop on roofing. It didn't go as bad as i had expected. About the week before the training i was told that i was going to supervise groups tarping a RV for Miss Gwen (the founder of Friend Ships mother). This disgusted me and made me not want to do it. Then, Dess knew a lady through the food ministry who needed her roof tarped. She had gotten her roof fixed after the hurricane, but it started leaking again just two weeks ago. I gave a 15 minute talk about tarping and then we piled into cars and vans and drove to the lady's house. We would put up a few sheets of vinyl and nail it down. Then we'd pack up and head back to Port Mercy. It was awesome because we finished tarping the roof during my last work shop. Everyone who came to my work shop was able to go away feeling more comfortable working on roofs and hammering in nails. I was glad.

Last night Dess and i went to an arena football game. The home team is the Swashbucklers. Arena football is a fast paced game with lots of action. We had a good time screaming and cheering. It made for a late night to end our tiring week, but it was worth it.

Well, for any of you who are waiting for me to respond to my "tag" from Sarah, you'll have to wait a bit longer. I've gotta do some deep thinking before i come up with 8 things. Keep checking the blog and i'm sure i'll come up with it sometime soon.

That's a bit of what's happening with us.

We are more than conquers . . . WE whooped those eye glasses in the bud!!!

GOODNESS . . . . . is all I have to say. We have been trying to get new glasses for Joel since Dad and Mom Butler came up to see us. They wanted to get Joel a new pair since his is all scratched up and falling apart. But it didn't work out. So Joel was able to get a free eye appointment the week after they left. The eye doctor said nothing really had changed when it came to Joel's eye sight.

So we went to get Joel a pair of glasses with his new prescription. Before we went to the eye glass shop Joel found his old prescription and to the unprofessional eye it looked like Joel's eye sight had changed a lot. So we took both of the prescription (one from five years ago and one from the new eye exam) and brought them with us to the eye glass store. The lady at the shop said she would not make us a pair because looking at the prescriptions they were totally different. So we went back to the doctors office but were not allowed to see the doctor, just nurses. When we explained what had happened and showed them the two prescriptions they said they trusted the doctor and would not question him. This was frustrating. We just wanted to know if they were truly different or not. But they would not help us.

So Joel went back to the lady (Jan) that set us up with the eye exam/doctor. She told Joel she would not call the doctor and question him. So being the wife that I am and being a bit tight with money at the moment I had a heart to heart talk with Jan. Finally in the end she said she would fax the doctor with the two prescriptions.

You would think everything was okay but things got a bit stickier. It went to the wrong doctor and Dr. Hart never saw it. They actually called me personally and asked me why I faxed them the prescription since it was another doctor who looked at Joel. Awwwwwwwwww. So we went back to Jan and asked to call Dr. Hart to see if they ended up giving him the two prescriptions. She found out that they looked at it and then called Joel on his old work phone number left a loooooooonnnnnnnngggg message and then ripped up the fax. By the grace of God and knowledge of Joel we some how got that message. It said the prescriptions were fine the new one was a little bit stronger than the first one.

"Finally!!!!" I thought "We can get Joel glasses now." So we went to Sears in the mall they were having a half off lenses and frame sale. Joel and I finally found glasses he liked then sat down for the pricing. The lady would only sell us the most expensive lens, she wouldn't even give us any other price besides the 2 most expensive lenses. Which with out the sale were 400 to 500 dollars for two lenses and with the sale it was well over 200 dollars. The grand total she wanted was almost three hundred dollars. I began to panic but quickly prayed and just said God we have that much money with us and if Joel needs it and this is the best we can do we will manage. The lady suggested we look around .

So the next eye glass store we went to the lady was saying we couldn't buy certain frames because of the wideness. (But the wide frames were the ones we liked) Finally we found one we liked and asked the price. (They were actually having the same sale) The frames and lenses with the sale came to 160ish dollars total. So we took it and are waiting for the glasses to be done this Thursday.

What I learned from this: Tenacity: Never give up and just give it to God. In the end He has your back.

Missing Dad and Mom Butler

Hello Everyone,

I know we talked about mom and dad butler coming to Louisiana but we have been missing them and talking about our time we had while they were here. So this blog is Dedicated to (drum roll please . . . like you don't know) DAD and MOM BUTLER.

BRING ON THE PICTURES . . . . . . .


Isn't Mom so Cute. How can you not love this woman?


Dad Showing Joel how it is done . . . Or was He?


Dad and Son!


Thats Not Mom or Dad . . .SMOKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Mom and New Daughter!!!


Squishy Face

Ode to Dad and Mom. We love you!!!

It's Been TOO LONG

Hello Hello again,
I see Joel has done some explaining on what has been going on in our lives. I hope you have enjoyed reading the fun day to day things we face.
As for me life has been so much better. I have finally broken free of the things that have kept me in bondage for so long. Okay so it wasn't me that broke me free but that one touch from Jesus. I have been struggling everyday for a year if God really is good. The old theological question came up over and over again, if you are a good God why do you allow ___________ (you fill in the blank) to happen. I had a very bad experience a year ago that made me question the goodness of God.

I was obedient to God in what he told me to do for a certain situation. Then it all went down hill from there. I was called self-righteous, arrogant and conceited for doing what I did. It was hard and a harsh reality. God had been with me the whole time through the storm but after it was all said and done I was like what kind of God are you? I did EXACTLY what you told me to do why did you allow __________ to happen. Has any buddy else been there or is there now. So, every day for a year I thought about what happened and wondered if God was really my friend, BOO, protector, defender, etc.

Then nearly a week ago God got through and touched me in the most awesome way by using a scripture you read all the time. It says rejoice and be EXCEEDINGLY glad when they call you all kinds of evil names and revile you because of me. GREAT is your reward in heaven.
I was extatic when I heard a speaker preach on this. I knew then that for every evil there is, God has good. Whether you see it in this life time or the next. I came to realize I would never see the true goodness out of the situtation until I got to heaven. That yes there is evil in the world, yes bad things happen to everyone (some worse than others) but GOD is soooooooo good that he creates something good out of that bad, whether we see it today or not. It will come to pass: His goodness for every situation. In the book of Ecclesiastes it says Everything will be made beautiful in it's time. I believe this with everything I have or I would cease to see the Goodness that is in God.

So as of now I AM FREE. THANK YOU JESUS, for touching me the way You did.

Other than that work has been good. We are having a disaster relief training coming up at the end of June. Both Joel and I are teaching a class. Joel on temporary tarping for roofs that have been damaged by disasters and for me Emergency Radio Broadcasting. How to go on air for a disaster response. Nervous and exciting all at the same time. God has blessed us in experiencing these subjects so why not teach others before they dive right in. Sounds reasonable? YIKES. Pray that we will do this with God's guidance and that everything we say will be so clear that the people coming could teach the class after we are done with them.

We love you all thank you for keeping up on our NORMAL (hehehehe) Daily lives.

Love you all,
Dess

Post Vacation Blues

Well, most of you will know by now that my parents came to Louisiana to surprise me. It was a fun visit. They were here for a week and we were able do some neat things, see some of the sites and best of all, eat some cultural food. If you haven’t tried gumbo with whole pieces of chicken, crab and shrimps, you are missing out.

If you check out our Flickr page, you’ll notice some photos that we’ve already posted. We plan on adding more at the beginning of next month because we’ve used up all of May’s upload time.

Okay, so here are some of the things we ended up doing. We went to Cameron Parish, a county right on the Gulf of Mexico that was heavily damaged during Hurricane Rita. The sites that we saw were very impacting. It’s crazy to realize that there had already been about 8 months of clean up work already done and it was still a mess. We saw houses that had nothing left but the foundation, cars that were completely ripped open, destroyed churches, hospitals and much more devastation. One town called Holly Beach, which was obviously a beach town right on the Gulf, had been completely wiped off the face of the planet. Upon our tour, we saw that they were already beginning to rebuild and power lines had been installed and pilings or stilts for houses were already being put up. (Because of flood waters, storm surge, etc. many people decide to actually build their houses about 8 to 10 feet up in the air to hope avoiding any such catastrophe. Dess and I have actually seen an entire elementary school that was built on stilts.)

We also went on a tour of Avery Island, the birthplace of “Tabasco Brand Hot Sauce”. The factory itself was interesting because they showed how the peppers were chosen and picked, then how the peppers were processed. Our tour guide wasn’t very enthusiastic about it though. The big deal of the island is actually the “Jungle Gardens” which is a scenic tour of various landscapes. They had bamboo and azaleas, holly and ivy, trumpeter vines and live oaks. Not to mention the living creatures. There were plenty of dear flies that wanted a piece of Dess and my meat. The coolest part was when Dess almost stepped on an alligator. It was a small thing, only about 4 feet long, sitting next to the path. It was near the “Bird City” a habitat and nesting grounds for white egrets. Dess was so excited to see the egrets from the lookout station that she was about 3 feet away from the gator before we could stop her. The gator barely flinched and just opened its mouth and hissed to ward Dess off. Mom was really bummed that the batteries on the digital camera had died and was unable to capture the moment. In fact, the batteries died right after coming out of the Tabasco factory, so she missed a lot of good opportunities.

We weren’t always on the go. We did take some time to relax together as well. Candling Dad’s ear was quite the bonding experience. So was the time when Dess offered to help Mom replace her nose piercing. Dess figured it’d be a cinch. Dess has had her nose pierced for like 8 years, so she could do her own nose no problem. But after taking out Mom’s piercing it took what seemed like forever before the new piercing could be forced into place. Talk about bonding.

Mini golf and bowling were also some of our distractions, not to mention shopping. All in all it was a great week with lots of adventure and tons of stories to tell. Now Dess and I are back in the lull of having to work and not having much fun on a day-to-day basis. We need to find ways to spice up our lives. Well, it’s was great seeing Mom and Dad. We hope to see you soon too, whoever you are that may be reading this!

Check out our Flickr Site!

Hey Everyone!

Just wanted to let you know that we've started a Flickr site. Check out the link on this site. That's all that i want you to know for now.

bye

The long awaited update

Hi!

I want to start by apologizing to anyone who regularly was checking our blog. I'm sure you aren't anymore with the way that we are keeping this updated. For our defense, it's been a pretty crazy time since our last post. Not that our lives are so full that we can't take the 30 minutes to blog every once in a while, it just more slips our mind than anything else.

Well, the Hope and Mersea have sailed off. They left May 2nd. Already they have done about a week of medical mission in Haiti. I thought that when they left that i'd sort of be free to work on my own projects. Boy was i wrong. Instead, Mary put me in charge of all the new male crewmembers. These are guys who may have been involved with Friend Ships for like 2 weeks or less before the ships sailed. So they had no idea where things are, how we work, the rules, etc. I became the mentor or babysitter, depending on how you look at it. At first it was pretty bad. I'd have to walk around showing them where things were, where to park, what to burn in the burn pile, not to drive trucks on the grass, how to show up on time for work, etc., etc. They pretty much have the routine down by now which is nice. But i've been keeping them so busy with work that i don't really have a whole lot of my own work to do.

Don't get me wrong, i'm extremely grateful for the help that these four men have been here around the property. We wouldn't be getting any work done without them. I just am having a hard time being a supervisor because they are spread out everywhere and i can't really get too hands on with the work they are doing. It leaves me feeling defensive because i'm not feeling like i'm accomplishing much, but i'm expecting a lot from these guys. I guess if i'm going to be a supervisor, i'd prefer to be more hands on and not have such a large spectrum to oversee. Because since the ships left, i've been made responsible for two more departments specifically and a whole lot of other stuff indirectly. I like being able to help out with the "leadership load" but i also like to get things done myself.

Okay on to another topic all together. This will be a quick side note because i don't have much to say about it, i just want to comment on it. The other day i went to Wal-Mart. At the front entrance there were two men sitting behind little tables asking for money. The men were dressed pretty nice in button up shirts with ties. The strange thing to me is that they were asking people going into and out of Wal-Mart for money for their church. Since being in the South, i've learned that tithing and money are important matters to the churches down here. Most new people to the South will comment that they don't like how they preach on tithes so much. It is a pretty different world down here when it comes to how pastors will try to coerce money out of their congregation. It's not too often that you'll hear about how we should be giving with a joyful heart. At some churches they even give a mini-message on tithing each time they take up offering. This can be a 5-10 minute ordeal which is led by one of the elders, deacons or ministers. I have a quote from my friend Matt who attended one of these churches. The elder stood before the congregation and said "You've got to give up the GREEN... not that stuff that jingles in yo' pockets... you've got to give the GREEN!!!" While saying this he took out a beautiful $50 bill and stuffed it into the offering basket. It just wouldn't fly in the North.

Back to life passing us by. Well, we got to go to Galveston Island for the weekend two weeks ago. That was a nice day, just sunning ourselves, playing mini-golf, book shopping and relaxing. It's pretty unusual that we get a long weekend, but Friend Ships gave us a day off after all the long hours we spent getting Hope and Mersea ready. It was a huge blessing. We've also been spending our weekends in an apartment off the ship. That's been nice. Central air, kitchen, bath tub, our own frig, leather lazy boys and lots of other wonderful treats. Dess was wonderful enough to do all the cooking. She made up spaghetti sauce from fresh vegetables. She's got skills.

It's been a busy month or so since we've last written. I hope you can forgive us for taking so long to write. I hope you'll continue to check our blog. We'd also love to hear you comment from time to time. Well, that's all i got for now.