Lissa's blog

Every day when my computer brings up this page as my home page, I am filled with guilt that I have gone so long without blogging or updating. But then I get over it. I have enough things in my life to worry about! Besides, my reasons are really good ones. It has been an exceptionally busy, exciting time for us these last five or six months. Once we left for Serbia we did do lots of blogging, but we did it on the Taste of Serbia website. Then, after returning from that amazing experience, I attended lots of staff development for the upcoming school year, we celebrated our five year wedding anniversary, and... we found out I was pregnant! (To answer the ever-popular question, no, we did not get pregnant overseas.) I proceeded to make my way through the first trimester, waiting with anticipation to share our great news, struggling with many complex emotions and adjusting to changes in my body (which included nausea and vomiting, of course). Immediately after the first trimester ended, I suffered from pleurisy, an inflammation of the lining between my rib and lung. It was an incredibly painful, frightening two weeks, but God was gracious and ever-present, granting me more peace than I could have imagined. When that was finally over I was well into my fourth month and I finally started feeling like myself again.

We leave tomorrow, June 16th for Serbia! We will be gone for two weeks: ten days in Serbia and three days in London plus a few travel days. This site may be a bit stagnant for a few weeks, but please check out the Taste of Serbia page where we will be posting updates during our trip.

Erin and I went to see The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants on Monday. It was an excellent chick flick. I am really glad I did not drag Jim to see it with me as he would have hated it, but I very much enjoyed seeing it with a good girlfriend. It is very well cast and the storyline is sweet and touching. I loved seeing the footage of Greece and it inspired Erin and me to rent Under the Tuscan Sun that night. That is another film I really enjoy (that Jim hates). Under the Tuscan Sun is not at all the same on my television as it was in the theater. Those sunflowers and the scenery on the big screen are breathtaking. On my television they were only beautiful.

Well, the countdown has begun! We leave for Serbia three weeks from Thursday (June 16th)! We are so excited about the prayers God has answered to make this happen. God answered many years' worth of prayer for a joint mission opportunity, recent prayer for time off of work for Jim, and prayer for $5,000 to finance the trip. He was faithful in every way.

It has been an whirlwind few months as we have prepared for this journey. We have had a church-wide fund raiser, attempts to learn a bit of Cyrillic and Serbian, and multiple meetings to learn about the culture and history of Serbia. As it stands, we have a team of three joining the Bell family from June 7 - 17, and Jim and I will be the only FBCA representatives with the Bells from June 16 - 26. The first team is doing art classes, and we are going to do construction work on several different sites. (This is great news for Jim! Being a girly girl, I am not so great with mortar or hammers, but I'll do whatever God wants me to do, and I'm very excited for my handyman husband to do what he enjoys for the glory of the Lord.) I am also excited to encourage the members of the church in Serbia. Theirs is a very small, discouraged church, and I pray that our love, enthusiasm, and prayers will bring needed refreshment.

Summer has arrived. We have had a long, beautiful spring with sunshine and temperatures in the 70s and 80s... until yesterday. In true Texas style, the weather shifted overnight launching us to 101 degrees in Carrollton yesterday. It was a record high for May 21st. And today was almost as bad with a high in the upper nineties. Thank heaven the last day of school is Thursday. I don't think I could handle the children for much longer in this heat. It makes everyone cranky.

It has all happened so fast. Maybe that's why I'm so overwhelmed... I like when things are planned and deliberate. A few weeks ago Julie Bell, our pastor's wife, approached me about helping to coordinate a trip to Serbia for this summer. I had agreed several years ago to help coordinate a trip to Serbia, but it had fallen through. Strangely, I wasn't devastated. My heart just wasn't in it at that time. Now, two years later, they decided to try again. I agreed to help coordinate the trip but I still wasn't sure whether I was going to go myself. Then I heard our pastor speak about the trip in church and I thought, "I want to go." I had no idea why. What was so weird was that Jim told me he wanted to go, too. That may not sound weird, but Jim has never expressed an interest in traveling or in leaving the country for any reason. He has never had the same passion for missions work that I have had. So this shocked me, and I decided we needed to go for it. So, here we are on March 20 scrambling to get airfare, passports, and to raise $2300 per person. And I still don't know why we're going. Of course, that's irrelevant. God asks us to listen to His voice and to show up. He'll take care of the rest. But it's so overwhelming! The other night I was expressing my doubts, concerns, and fears to Jim, and he kindly and patiently listened to everything I had to say. Then, when I was done, he tenderly said, "Lissa, you're listening to all the wrong voices." I knew he was right, and suddenly the lyrics to Casting Crown's "Voice of Truth" flooded my head. It was as if they were written for me.

I should have known that the beauty that comes with Spring Break would be as fleeting as the break itself. It is currently about 42 degrees outside and it has been drizzling on and off with cloudy skies and wind. I suppose it's fitting that the crummy weather would occur simultaneously with newfound TAKS pressure. The TAKS Math test for fifth grade is coming up in a few weeks, and I have a lot more to think about for this test than the last one. I suppose in a few weeks it will all be over (the weather and the testing) and I can get on with my joyful mood!. Maybe a bubble bath and new novel can make things better for tonight... I do have ice cream in the freezer... Mmm... and Reeses' that I can chop up and put in the ice cream. Okay. All's well with the world.

Absolutely nothing can heighten my mood like a sunny, warm, perfectly beautiful spring day in Dallas. The peach tree has started blossoming in our back yard, the birds are singing non-stop, and I have one day left of my Spring Break. I headed out today to run errands with Jim in my short-sleeved tee-shirt and open-toe shoes, and was thrilled to find that my big toenail has made great gains being closed off from the world all winter (I tore it off in a freak playground accident the first week in October). To make things even better, my house is clean and neat after a week of good housekeeping.

I cannot believe it is time for Spring Break. I'm currently sitting on my sofa at 10:00 in the morning, drinking a cup of coffee, and listening to the birds sing while sunshine streams through the house. I live for these moments. When I think of Spring Break or summer vacation, I envision just this - the coffee, the birds, the sunshine, and a myriad of TLC television programs... while I make lists of things to do during my time off. Already this morning I have written my long list of things I hope to accomplish during this week, and I've done two or three things on the list already. I'll probably jet out the door within the next hour and check off three or so more items.

I had the weirdest and worst haircut experience on Sunday. No, my hair wasn't a disaster; the actual cutting process was. The girl who cut my hair cut herself... badly. She ended up going to the hospital to get stitches! She got blood in my hair that stained it for about twenty-four hours! I was really shaken and pasty white (except for the pink spot in my hair), and the wild part is, everyone in the salon knew about this (because it doesn't happen every day, or I wouldn't be going to that salon)... everyone, that is, except the receptionist. When I got to the front desk she asked, "How was everything today?" I replied that it wasn't so good, and she said, "Oh. Did she take too much off?" I told her no, that I had wanted several inches taken off, but I hadn't wanted a medical emergency for the stylist. She said, "Oh. Well, that will be $54."