We're moving...in cyberworld, anyway.

It's time. Farewell Blogger...we're moving on to easier places that inspire me to blog, unlike this unfavorable service you provide. They even imported all my previous posts, so you will no longer be needed!

So friends...you will not find us any longer here at this address. So, plug this new address in as our blog. Otherwise you'll never get updates from us. Or hear about our crazy life. And where we live. And how many children we now have. And how many deer Aaron killed this year. Important stuff, I know.

Again. Here it is: schaubs.wordpress.com.

See you there...

Life gets busy sometimes

This was my life a few weeks ago. Single parent to five children ages 8, 6, 4, 4, and 1 year. Let's hope that doesn't become reality.

And Sam turned one.

He still falls a lot on his head. Is walking all over the place. He inherited the talking gene from someone in his family. He's very cute and still cuddles in the morning. More on him later.

Then I came home. The Voth parents came for about 5 days. Thank goodness, because I got sick and Sam would have had complete run of the house had they not been here. Thanks, Mimee and Papa.

We had a birthday party. Yes, that's another post. It was lovely and Sam devoured his entire cupcake.

If I have a good weekend, I'll get some of those picts posted. We'll see.

To the Northwest and back.

Oh Oregon, how lovely you are!



Aaron and I left on my #32 last weekend for a week in the Portland area and it couldn't have been better. Perfect weather, perfect traveling partner, delicious food, good friends, fabulous wine...and fall. FALL, my friends, is something I have not seen (via coloring leaves) in a LONG TIME. Way tooooooo long. Seriously, I want to move north now. Corpus Christi, you're great and all, but your leaves do not change color. And for that matter, neither did your's, Guam!


The Japanese garden...Hoyt arboretum...the crazies on Alberta on Last Thursday...the oatmeal brulee...the Moroccan feast...Bread&Wine...the corn maze...Mt. Hood and all the apple and pear orchards at its feet...great people like the Eddleman's, Emily, and Stephanie...and going to a city where you can bike all around. Novel concept you NWers have.




{Notice Aaron's breakfast...3 large fried pieces of chicken on top of a waffle. Portland is heaven for foodies and this place, called 'Screen Door', was a NW take on Southern food. Good. And I don't usually like grits.}


The Moroccan feast. So good.


The port-a-potty. And cutie Laurel.


Public drinking fountains...they are all over the city.


The Japanese Gardens...




Mt. Hood


Multnomah Falls


Good friend, Emily, DROVE up from LA to see us (and the Eddlemans, but they were having a baby) and she and our new friend, Stephanie, joined us for a wine/beer-tasting-sight-seeing-adventure. What great times, lovely ladies!






One of the greatest parts of being in Portland was to send off Josh and Laurel to go meet their baby girl, Galilee Halleh. Through an incredible story, God has blessed them with a lovely little girl that was born on the Friday we were in Portland. The birth mom went into labor on Wednesday so we hurriedly packed them up and they drove through the night to California to meet their baby girl. So excited for them...Congrats, Eddlemans! God is good.

Though we didn't take the little boy with us, he was too busy to miss us as he went on bike rides, played on the trampoline with his cousins, gained some weight (seriously), slept like a champ, and took off walking. Everywhere. My world is a bit busier these days. But he's cuter than ever. My sis took pictures of him while she was keeping him one afternoon...click here. Don't you just want to eat him up?

Special thanks to Mimmi and Daddi Schaub and the Beadles clan for keeping the cutie alive. Heather, I'm paying you back this week (doubly over and over)...I hope I come out alive! smile.

Busy

FBB has taken off and I've been doing some serious baking. 10 pans of cinnamon rolls and 15 loaves of bread this week! Check out the 'Tasting Tea' we did here. We did the same thing at church on Sunday morning too!

We've got a walker, folks. Though he has yet to practice his moves at home, he took 6 steps for our entire small group last night! Maybe he just wants/needs a big crowd to get him movin. Get ready Mimmi and Daddi for next week!

We're wrapping things up this week because Aaron and me (minus the cutie) are headed to Portland to see our friends, the Eddleman's. Happy 5th Anniversary to us!

We've had 7 inches of rain in the past 36 hours. More on the way. Might need to borrow a boat if you have one. I heard some were kayaking down their street yesterday. Thank you tropical storms.

I was getting out bigger clothing for Sam and realized I missed a whole huge sack of cute summer clothes he didn't get to wear. Not like Sam really wears anything other than a t-shirt and diaper...but hey, that was kinda sad for me. Oh well.

I enter the world of 32 year olds this week. Wow. I used to think that was really old. Now look where I am. At least I'm married to someone still in his 20's.

Sam @ 11 months

I don't think he could be any cuter. I'm biased, I know.

He is crawling. Standing for a long time by himself. Took his first step on Monday. Will walk with you holding just one hand. He's ready, I think to take on the world. Eek...our world is about to change!

He waves. He has eaten everything we put in front of him (with gusto, might I add). He's a champ at Mother's Day Out.

He falls on his head...a lot. Any suggestions for a helmet?

His morning nap is now only about an hour and his afternoon is much longer. I hope we're not losing a nap.

He pushes his cart around like a champ. And laughs the whole time.

He still loves to read books. With gusto, might I add. Non-board books aren't an option around here since he loves to eat paper. Both of our bibles have pages missing that were ingested.

His place of security is in mama's arms, right hand fingers in mouth, left hand playing with hair, head on mama's left shoulder. If you don't have hair, he won't cuddle...Aaron has tried.

He is 30.75 inches long and weighs a good 23 pounds. For that reason alone he needs to start walking to save his mama's back.

He loves the bathroom...playing in the toilet...falling into the tub...unrolling toilet paper.

He is such a flirt...is still very happy...and is a joy to us. How thankful we are! Sam, we love you...we love seeing your little personality come out...we love getting to see you learn and discover. Thanks for bringing so much life to this house!

{This pict was amidst many classics from our impromptu 'swimming hole' on a tarp in our backyard...more to come later.}

Fed by Bread

This post has been long time coming so if you are going to read, grab some coffee and settle in...it's going to be a long one.

About a year ago I was five months pregnant, had just moved to a new city, didn't have a job, and had just finished my masters degree in Intercultural Studies from Biola University. It was a new phase in life and I had no idea how my upcoming motherhood would mesh with my passions to love others and see their lives holistically transformed through the love and compassion of Jesus. My masters experience drastically changed how I see ministry. Working cross-culturally is HARD and usually takes years to see any progress. Solutions and change do not come easy. Cycles of poverty and bondage are not fixed with band-aids. Effective transformation is through sustainable development. And how the gospel is holistic...not just concerned with the spiritual condition of people. Jesus lived this way...and how I need to also.

I am still grappling with these issues. Are we ultimately hindering others in our efforts to help? (If you want to think more on this, check out When Helping Hurts.)

I couldn't put the wrestling match going on in my head into a nice box and put it onto the shelf. I was desperate to figure out how all this comes together. Aaron and I talked a lot...and I began praying.

June 2009 came and we had a house blessing at our little abode and invited several friends over. In preparation I had baked a lot of homemade bread for BBQ sandwiches. I love baking...I'm a good German Mennonite like that. I come from a long line of bakers. My mother, my grandmother, my aunts, my sisters. It's a normal skill for our family and we enjoy it. Some call it therapy...and I digress.

During the summer, our church was talking about vision...taking risks and following the Spirit's lead...living out the Kingdom on earth. I was reading through Mark and I was stuck on the two recorded times Jesus fed thousands of people. I have heard these stories probably a million times but it was different this time. Jesus and the disciples are out. Jesus is teaching. Dinner time is here and the people are hungry. The disciples come and tell Jesus, we gotta let these people go home and get some food, they are hungry. Instead of saying, 'Ok,' Jesus put the situation back in their hands. "What are YOU going to do about it? You give them something to eat." (Mark 6.37 paraphrased by me.) I'm sure the disciples laughed...this was a HUGE group of people and they had nothing (so they thought).

Jesus was concerned...He cared about the peoples' physical condition and created both a teaching moment while meeting a need. He did the same in me. Here I saw some guys a lot like me...simple, with blue-collar skills, faced with a ginormous need. Jesus asks them, "How many loaves do you have?" They surveyed what they had AT THAT MOMENT, and gave it to Jesus. I'm sure they felt worthless and doubted what little they had come up with. I would have.

Consequently that month I had been reading about the extreme world food crisis going on all over the world. I was drawn to Sub-Saharan Africa. Not sure why since I have spent more time in Asia. The cycle of poverty is devastating. The agricultural side of things is not good. Because farmers are just trying to provide for their families and possibly generate some income, the land never lays fallow to preserve some nutrients. Over-cultivation depletes the nutrients in the soil leading to low yield which then effects the nutrition of families and the sustainability of their productivity. As a farmer's daughter, I understand a bit of this.

When you know a situation is bad and people are hungry, do you sit and watch it happen? How do you help when you either don't know how to help or are overwhelmed with the huge needs? It can be depressing and I think we're often frozen to act because the problem is so much bigger than we can handle.

There is a piece of me that aches that my time to go and tangibly help people through viable sustainable development projects is not now. I struggle being content in this area. However, God did give me an idea to contribute.



Bake bread. Baking here. Feeding there. American's love homemade bread. Sell a staple to help provide a staple for a family's table in Ethiopia. Send all the profits to sustainable development projects to help parents feed their families. And in the mean time, create a little awareness for my local community about the world food crisis. Give them an opportunity to contribute and love someone else by eating bread. Fed by Bread was born.



Now if you know me and know a bit of my history, you realize baking is not a big deal in my family. I come from a long line of bakers and we consider our ingredients pretty important. That's why all the flour I've been using is from the Okeene Mill in Okeene, Oklahoma. Each trip we take to OK and every time my parents come down to Corpus, someone is hauling a few hundred pounds in flour. It's just that good (and the mill has donated some of the flour!).




The pieces are starting to come together...my very long-time friend, Karm, designed the logo and initial website. We're still putting the pieces together for the official website, but this blog and the FBB facebook page are also up and going.



For the past year things have gone up and down as far as orders go...but after the slow summer, it's been great to see interest peak in different groups of people here in Corpus. Tasting tea parties are going to happen this fall where several friends are going to host their friends to share about FBB. Exciting.

How it works: people place an order and I bake on Tuesday or Thursday. I put together a short flyer each week that brings the subject of hunger into tidbits for people to read. Recently I've included parts of an interesting article about the factors contributing to hunger. After the bread is baked, each loaf (or pan) is packaged up and then Sam and I go out delivering.



What am I baking, you ask?

The current menu is as follows:
Honey Whole Wheat
Walnut Whole Wheat
White
Six-grain
Cinnamon Chip
Chocolate Chip
Gooey Cinnamon Rolls (9x13 pan)
Communion Bread

So where do the profits go? Several places. FBB supports 2 Ethiopian kids, Rametu and Sisay, through World Vision. We have financed micro-finance loans for new entrepreneurs through kiva.org. We hope to support some of the great projects going on through Samaritan's Purse. We support projects like the 'Seeds, Tools, and Training' through World Vision which provides those things to farmers throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. It's pretty great stuff these organizations are doing...we just like to be another link in keeping these projects funded. $5 of every loaf and $10 of each pan of cinnamon rolls goes directly to these projects.

Baking here...feeding there. We've already given over $1000 away this past year and hope to double that through this next year.

Hungry to feed others? What are you doing in response to the significant world food crisis? Would you like to join me in helping a few Ethiopian families?

We have no idea where FBB will go or how big or little it will be...I just hope to be faithful with my skills and passions today.



(Even baby Sam loves some baked goods...one day he'll actually taste those.)

5 years

we made it...and we didn't just make it, we've thrived this year. we joined the ranks of parents...we grew a lot...we got involved in a community...we love each other more...we're still best friends. it's been a challenging, but great year.

John Piper had some great things to say about marriage...

Marriage is not mainly about prospering economically; it is mainly about displaying the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. Knowing Christ is more important than making a living. Treasuring Christ is more important than bearing children. Being united to Christ by faith is a greater source of material success than perfect sex and double-income prosperity.

So it is with marriage. It is a momentary gift. It may last a lifetime, or it may be snatched away on the honeymoon. Either way, it is short. It may have many bright days, or it may be covered with clouds. If we make secondary things primary, we will be embittered at the sorrows we must face. But if we set our face to make of marriage mainly what God designed it to be, no sorrows and no calamities can stand in our way. Every one of them will be, not an obstacle to success, but a way to succeed. The beauty of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church shines brightest when nothing but Christ can sustain it.



Aaron...I love you. Love that you chose me...love who you have become and who you are becoming...love that I am your best friend...love the journey we are on...love watching you be a daddy...thanks for loving me and showing me Jesus.