School Picture Day

School day pictures make me laugh. I always end up in a clothing or hair battle with a nameless little girl in my house and then I remember 2nd grade. 

My mom had taken me to get a perm. I wanted to be Annie. My best friend Katie had a perm and I had to have one. The perm didn't take. She took me back the next day and they did it again. My hair was fried.  It grew at recess. My teacher called my mother and told her I had snuck a John Deere tractor toboggan to school and refused to take it off. It was so bad Katie's mother took me to have chunks cut out. It was bad. 

So on picture day, I had a new shirt from Bargain Town. I wanted a hair clip to show off my earrings. Mother wanted my hair down. We fought and she won. I went to school and found my friend who had 50 hair clips in her hair. I asked her if I could borrow just one.  So my strong willed self put one clip on one side of my hair to show off my earrings!  I won!  So I thought . . .  Did you know they send those pictures home? To my surprise my mother saw what I had done at school. I don't have the picture to show you. I am pretty sure we did not purchase that picture. I have the pre-perm picture. Obviously my daughter's fashion sense and strong will don't fall far from the tree. 

So if you see her today for school pictures, just know she won and I didn't fight because I am sure she would find a way. 

A Quarter

How many quarters are in your purse?

In your car?

In your couch?

In your desk? 

In your house?

I know how much a quarter is worth. I may not do numbers but I know a quarter. This is me, almost 3 years ago serving the first Stop Hunger Now meal in Belize. The meal cost a quarter for an entire family. A quarter. 

So who is hungry?

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people in the world, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment.

Who is the most vulnerable?

Children. Poor nutrition plays a role in at least half of the 7.6 million child deaths each year.  

Is there enough food in the world to feed everyone?

Yes but many people in the world don't have the land to grow it on or the income to purchase it. 

This is my family delivering rice and beans to families in a local village in Belize. The faces you don't see, I know by name. These faces are my friends. These faces are real people, some are your brother and sister in Christ. 

Poverty is real. 

Hunger is real. 

Starvation is not you at lunchtime. 

And a quarter changes everything. 

Statistics are sometimes overwhelming. This first time in Belize my heart was stuck in my throat and broken. And then I saw the mutual brokenness between my friends and myself. The brokenness is mutual. (Read When Helping Hurts!) You see the meal that cost a quarter taught me more than anything I could buy.  In a few short weeks I will not be back on the crunchy dirt road passing out rice and beans. I won't even be in a kitchen mixing rice and beans in bowls with plastic spoons. I will be in my own church packing the rice with Stop Hunger Now. The same organization that showed me my brokenness in the face of the hungry. 

It really does take an army for an event like this to work. It takes 100 volunteers just to pack the rice. 

 Here is the goal: 

30,000 meals

Cost $7500

100 volunteers

Each Volunteers gets $75 in donations and sponsors

Each meal you sponsor is a quarter. 

If each volunteer raises 75 dollars, that equals 300 meals!!!

We have raised $1,000 so far but we have a long way to go!

I need you to share this blog, donate or come join my family and serve. 

Follow this link for more information:

http://www.ewestwood.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=282831

In Him, 

Marsha

Little Soccer Girl

When God handed me my daughter He did not give me a list on how this little girl would be different than her brother. She was tiny. My sister came over the night we came home from the hospital and told me she thought Marlee was a bird. I thought she was delicate. I was wrong.

 She is growing into herself. Underneath her green and black glasses and behind her brown eyes is determined little girl ready to break whatever idea I think she is. Just when I try to guess what her answer will be she does the complete opposite. She has her daddy's math brain and loves to help him do anything with tools. She has lots of words and more questions than allowed in one day. She is as tender hearted as she is mean.  She is a fierce competitor. Team sports are her favorite activities. Any ball will do. I love this photo of her in Belize. She is the orange capped child half the size of the older girls but determined she could hang in their soccer game. She was in her element. 

I hope she will remember this soccer field in Belize more than any other field she plays on.  You see on this field it isn't pride, winning or goals. It is the gospel. 

This weekend she will start with a new soccer team on a different field. She will put on her soccer cleats and wear number 7. She will play hard. She always does. People will cheer for her, others will cheer against her. She will hear it all. 

I pray the little soccer girl with a big heart hears Him louder than the world around her. 

When others tell her she isn't good enough, God says "you are fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalms139:14 ESV)

When she feels alone, God says"I will never leave you nor forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5 ESV)

When she feels afraid, God says "for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. (2 Timothy 1:7 ESV)