Hey, our darling Siestas! This is your happy but bleary-eyed Siesta Mama writing you from our first stop on pilgrimage. Melissa, the entire LPM staff (minus AJ and CJ), many of our volunteers (for whom this trip was thrown) and I made it to Tel Aviv about seven hours ago, loaded onto buses and headed a half hour’s distance to Joppa. (We are 100-strong) For those of you who are interested, this is the very place Jonah boarded a ship to flee from the will of God. It is also the place Peter raised Dorcas (Tabitha in Aramaic) from the dead. We do not know why she was named Dorcas. We hope it was not because her father was an infamous Dork of antiquity.

Perhaps many of you know by now that Curtis’s beloved maternal grandmother passed away suddenly the night before our flight so AJ did exactly what she should have done. She cancelled out on the trip and headed to Missouri with both children to stand by her man. We miss her so much and bear all the Joneses on our hearts as they mourn their loss and celebrate the absolute certainty that she is with Christ.

We will spend tonight here in Tel Aviv then load back onto the buses in the morning and head for Caesarea and Megiddo. Here are a few pictures Melissa has taken for us so far:

The beautiful coastal city of Joppa, our first stop on the trip.

The Mediterranean Sea

Our First Teaching Session overlooking the Sea:

(I got a little amused when I looked at this one. That’s Hawk standing up in the back. She’s keeping a good eye on her charge. That would be me.)

The Hebrew Text of Jonah which mentions Joppa as the town where Jonah boarded a ship for Tarshish in attempt to run from the Lord (1:3). (That’s Melissa’s Bible. Not mine.)

While we were in route, we came upon quite an intriguing sight. This is a gathering of Jews from one of the most orthodox sects in Israel. They are protesting a building development they believe to be upon an ancient gravesight.

And to make things more interesting , they were “helped” into a restricted area by some police.

Our sweeping view of Tel Aviv from the Hotel

We wish every single one of you Siestas were with us here! We’ll try to stay in pretty close touch. We love you!

Living Proof Live – Grand Rapids from Rich Kalonick on Vimeo.

Praise the Lord! Maryam and Marzieh have been acquitted of all charges by the Iranian judicial authorities. Elam Ministries says that they arrived safely in another country today. You can read the press release here. Thank You, Jesus! Thank you for praying, Siestas!

*UPDATE* The ticket giveaway is now closed. Special thanks to my co-workers for helping out with this!

Buenos dias, Siestas! We are giving away ten tickets to the Living Proof Live  – Grand Rapids, MI event, which is this weekend. If you would like to attend the conference but the ticket cost has been prohibitive, please give Kimberly Meyer or Susan Kirby a call at our LPM office today or tomorrow. (FYI, tickets are still available for purchase.) I will update this post when I get word that all the tickets have been spoken for.

If you haven’t already read our Siesta Summer Bible Study III announcement, please don’t miss it.  We’re really excited about our summer plans.

Thanks, ladies! Have a great day!

It’s that time of year when hard-working students – AND those making it by the skin of their teeth – walk across platforms and get their diplomas.  Anybody besides us have a graduate this year? If so, tell us about him/her! No matter what the age or kind of graduation – from kindergarten to tech schools to doctorates – if an official ceremony is involved, let’s celebrate!  If you ARE the graduate, that’s even better. We love any opportunity to celebrate a Siesta. Tell us what God has enabled you to accomplish and what your plans are now.  This is what community is for.

While we join you in your celebration, please join us in ours. Here’s a huge Siesta shout-out to Melissa Moore Fitzpatrick for earning her second Master’s degree, a Th.M from Columbia Theological Seminary. Child, you have worked your fingers to the bone. You’ve done what it takes and at no small cost. Your Dad, Amanda, Curtis and I are so proud of you and amazed by you. THIS from the high school athlete dash prom queen with the blue and white 69 Camaro Z28 who mostly studied for a test on the way to school that morning…while driving. You are a stud, young lady.  Just like your sister. I celebrate the different directions Jesus has taken the two of you and I am so proud of the young women both of you have become. Make no mistake. You both need Jesus equally to make it through the lives He’s entrusted to you.

Colin, Melissa was so right to say that this graduation was just as much about you as it was her. Thank you for so often gazing at your new bride over a sky-high stack of books and papers and for listening to Hebrew lingo and doctrinal debates you never cared to know about. I have a feeling you didn’t see this coming when that young woman passed you in the halls of Langham Creek High School ten years ago. Keith, Amanda, and I will love you forever for how you love our girl and for how much you support her continued theological education. She’s so worth it, isn’t she? I speak this blessing as much over you as over her:

May God sanctify you, anoint you richly and shine His light brightly on your next steps. “May He remember all your sacrifices…May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. We will shout for joy…and will lift up our banners in the name of our God.” Psalm 20:3-5

OK, Siestas! Let’s hear it for your graduates!

Hi, Siestas! AJ, our trusty Siestaville Blogmaster, is sitting right next to me in my office at LPM and she is tutoring me on how to add images into my posts. As you might recall (if you have admirable taste), I rocked at it when we were on Blogger but I’ve stunk it up on WordPress. Hence, Heaven alone knows all you’ve missed. In order to practice my new skills, I am going to take you through a random backlog of pictures I’ve taken with my iPhone during this season of blog-blackness. Knowing in advance that these are pictures taken with a cell phone should tell you what level of quality to expect. I know. I can’t wait either so let’s get right to it!

This is a picture I took of AB when I moved into AJ’s with the kids while she moved into the hospital with CJ. In order to give Jackson a bath by himself and let him be a fish for 20 solid minutes until he wrinkles up like a prune, I had to put AB in the Pack and Play. This is her cutest “Bibby, get me out of here before this gets ugly” look.

This is Jackson being Jackson. No, it’s not a clear picture but it is clear Jackson. He is my best friend in the whole world. Never has there EVER been a Bibby who loved a boy more.

This is Trav and me. After every few LPL’s when we get to hang around with the team and all act silly, one of us holds up our iPhone in front of our own face and says, “Hurry, jump in!” We have noticed over time that if he is holding the camera, oddly, he is the main one in the picture. If I am holding the camera, of all things, I’m the main one in the picture. Such a mystery. We have a ton of these. I bet you can guess who is holding the camera on this one. No, I have not been drinking. My eyelashes were just getting heavy.

My in-laws (Meems and Big Pops, who live right next to us) recently put in a vegetable garden and the four of us (them, my man and me) are completely obsessed with it. Sometimes the four of us just sit there in folding chairs and stare at the veggies like we could watch them grow. That’s Meems. (Short for Memaw) You can see the tiniest glimpse of Big Pops in the corner. Per Travis, one might wonder if Meems was the one taking the picture. It would have required a really long rubber arm, however.

This is Big Pops showcasing our first tomato. As soon as it ripens, we four have agreed to quarter it as our firstfruit and eat it together with hilarity and thanksgiving. Now that we have a vegetable garden, we like to say, “We grow our own food.”

This is a very good friend of mine’s recent 1-year token from AA. My pitiful photography here is a crying shame because, if you could really wrap your mind around this, you’d know it was worthy of a screaming shout of praise. Yahoo, God! I love You, I love You, I love You, I LOVE YOU!

The next four comprise a series. Recently, while Hawk and I were waiting at the gate for a flight back to Houston, a small herd of people walked right in front of us and one of them dropped the equivalent of a Sonic Route 44 Dr. Pepper. It hit the floor with a boom and exploded. The mother of said spiller promptly began dabbing at the edges of the broken dam with something the size of cocktail napkins while Hawk and I looked at one another like, “Somebody do something!” All the sudden, almost like a ray of light from Heaven broke through the ceiling and shone upon it, I looked up and saw this on the wall directly in front of us.

Does that say SPILL CENTER????? Could my eyes be deceiving me??? Let’s take a closer look!

I was like Clark Kent spying a telephone booth just in the nick of time. “Hawk, look!” said I! “A Spill Center!” I leapt over to it in a single bound and, knowing not what it was, perceived that I should reach into the bottom of the cylinder and pull. To my great surprise, this was no super absorbent giant towelette! It was the greater blessing! BEHOLD!!

I set it down right over said spill and some might say I saved the day. I felt empowered! Like any minute official airport personnel were going to wheel up on a golf car, saying “Scuse cart!” through the herd and deputize me. I was red-faced with humility.

While I waited, I felt a demonstration was in order. Here is what could happen to a person if caution is not quickly heeded. Or if Clark Kent can’t find a phone booth.

Whew. Even recounting it to you is thrilling. My heart rate is elevated.

Thank you, AJ!! If not for your excellent tutorial, all of Siestaville would have missed this profoundly important visual experience.

Lastly, with further thanks to AJ, I now have a picture with my blogger name when I comment. When it came Gravatar-time in our tutorial session, my brain was already at maximum absorption so I made AJ do it for me while I iced my forehead. She felt, then, that it was only fair that she get to choose the picture. You’ll understand when you see it. It goes to prove what I’ve long since believed. Every kid wants her parents to love each other.  They can survive without it – many of us are proof of that. But, they want it still.

I love you guys!