God thoughts

Just reading and praying and these verses really stuck out to me.  I was just praying about our time here and asking God to speak to me..

“Remember those in prison as if you yourself were fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourself were suffering

 

Keep your lives free of the love of money and be content with what you have because God has said

Never will I leave you,Never will I forsake you

So we say with confidence

The Lord is my helper I will not be afraid what can man do to me?

Let us then go to Him outside the camp bearing the disgrace He bore For here we do not have an enduring city but we are looking for the city that is to come. 

And do not forget to do good and to share with others for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

 

May the God of peace…Equip you with everything good for doing His will and may he work in us what is pleasing to Him through Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever amen.”

Scriptures taken from Hebrews 13

Just felt God saying don’t think about what we don’t have.  Think about what we can do.  How we can be a blessing.  We don’t do everything we do for a better life here, we do it with an eternal perspective.  There is so much need here.. But like it said in the first verse I want to think about the mistreated (SO SO many of these village kids) as if I were suffering myself which means constantly.  That is where my thoughts and prayers should be.  How can I help.  The need can be overwhelming but there is so much we can do.  PRAY. Please be praying for these children to know God.  To know his love and acceptance, for their parents to take care of them.  They are suffering, neglected, mistreated, hungry, and God does care .

Dahlias quote of the week…

After some frustration that she couldn’t hold the baby cause mommy had to feed her (I am nursing) she pulled her dress up and  loudly objected “I feed my baby!”  Needless to say that didn’t happen…

Efalias Village where we live

Hello everyone this is Josh,

I’d like you to sit back, relax, and put your feet up as we take a tour of our village.

This is our house.  We have the nicest house in a Very very poor neighborhood.  It is a 525 sqft. 2 bedroom 1 bath bungalow.  The ocean is 50 yards behind us.  We enjoy banana and pipi, (papaya), and avocado trees on the property.  We have recently added screens to the windows to keep put unwanted visitors!  We truly are blessed to have such a nice home .  We do not have much of a kitchen (ie no stove or appliances other than a fridge) but it is nice.  We also have learned the art of hand washing or rather we are trying to…. :0

If you were standing on our front porch, which someday you could be, you would notice the village church.  Directly to the left of this photo is our house.  The church is Presbyterian.  We’re also hoping this will become our preschool building!  We will be asking if we have preschool on days there are not church activities.  We don’t know the outcome so we will see.  Please keep that in prayer.

Now lets take a look at some houses from left to right from what you can see from our porch.

There are three houses in the above picture.  All of them are one bedroom and zero bath.  Come for a visit and we can arrange one of these cute bungalows for you.

I call this one “ Old Man Sits On Trash Pile”.  If I ever win an award for it he’ll get the proceeds.

I call this one “Bigger View Of Old Man Sits On Trash Pile”.

This shot is the front right of us.  I believe this is a two bedroom???  It’s architecture is in the classic “Alaskan” style, meaning two or more additions attached to the falling apart main structure.  If you can't see, it is constructed out of ANY available material.

And finally to our far right is this humble dwelling.  It is one of the nicer homes, it has the only glass windows I know of.

If we go deeper into the village it gets worse, but this blog would be much to long.  So that will be another journey another day.

I hope you’ve captured some of the essence of village living.  We love it,  except for the burning trash, lice, disease, lack of education, abuse, and starving dogs.

Our address..

YWAM (Neeleys)

PO BOX 8105

Port Vila, Efate

Vanuatu

Pierces quote of the week

Pierce-Mom I have a really bad cough, I got it from Dahlia.

Me-really?  Dahlia doesn’t even have a cough.

Pierce-uh..mom she had one till I took it from her!

HM…I can see how that makes sense to him.

Bellas adoption story (she turns two on Tuesday!)

This is a copy of an old post I did on an old blog I had while we lived in Vanuatu in the South Pacific doing volunteer mission work.  We now reside here in the US and as her birthday is coming up on Tuesday I just wanted to post this to honor the God that put us all together.  What a blessed miracle she is!

We just adopted…BELLA is finally home & we are all in love with her!

Josh and I have felt it on our heart for years to adopt even before we had kids.  We have tried several times to look into different options but before things could go very far it would always fall through.   We know that at the core of Gods heart is a longing and a desire for children to have life, be loved and cared for.  Here is the answer to YEARS of prayer and a life saved!!  Introducing BELLA CHRISTIAN NEELEY born Sunday, April 19, 2009 at 7:11 am 3.52 kilos, or 7.74 lbs
“True religion is this to care for the orphans and the widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world”-James 
I got the call on Sun at 1:45 am that Mary had gone into labor and we (Amanda my friend & I) were to meet her at the hospital.  So I got dressed fast and ran in the dark to my friend Amanda's house down the road a ways to get her.  There was a little confusion and we finally got a hold of the guy who was to take us to the hospital (remember neither of our families have cars, and bus’ don’t run in the middle of the night here unless they are just getting done drinking or coming from a kava bar (not good if you are the one getting a ride!).  We had woken him up and it turns out he went right back to sleep! So an hour later we figured out what happened and had to wake Amanda’s husband  Jeff (you can’t go out as a girl with out a guy in the  middle of the night for safety reasons.)  Then we had to pray for a Taxi cause it was the middle of the night and just as I prayed one showed up (we had only seen two vehicles period in the last hour we had been there!)!
Finally after much waiting and praying Little Bella was born at 7 am!  
This photo is of when she was only 20 min old!  Pre bath.  I was the very first person to touch her after delivery except for the nurse who delivered her!  She was under a heat lamp crying while the nurse attended to Mary (birth mother) and I was able to touch her and soothe her.  I was even able to give her her first bath !
The kids and Josh came as soon as they were allowed at about 8:30 on their way to church which happens to be right behind the hospital.  They were all so excited to meet her!

Notice the falling off diaper! Dahlia was crying cause all She got to hold were Bella’s feet.  Pierce and Dahlia just love having a little sister.  Dahlia keeps tugging on my pants saying “I can’t see my baby” when I am holding her. 

This morning she got out of bed saying “Ours baby! Ours baby!”  Like where is our baby?  Usually she yells “mama” and waits for me to get her out of bed.  Unfortunately at this point Bella much prefers if Josh or I hold her…Don’t know why :) 

This is the brave lady who gave Bella to us.  She is sitting with her daughter on her left and her sister on her right.  She is 36 and is not married, and the father is long gone.  Her parents are not willing to take another of her children as they have raised the other kids (the girl above 18 and two boys 7 and 10).  She knew we were her answer to prayer as to what to do concerning the baby.
Giving the baby up was hard for her to do even though she had planned it for months.  It was a bit emotional at the actual passing over when she got off the bus before us.  She didn’t say anything and I croaked out an awkward “Thank you, thank you” not knowing what else to say.  I am pretty sure she didn’t see me crying as I received the baby from her sister who was with her cause she wouldn’t look at me.  I think she was trying not to let me see her emotions.  I  wrote her a letter and stuck it in her bag at the hospital.  I just wanted to go beyond the language barrier and say that we were honored and thanked her for choosing life for our now daughter.  I reminded her that the love we feel for this baby is the same love God has for us (including her) as He says in the Bible he has “adopted” us in to His family.  I continued to tell her that God has a plan for her life and for Bella's life and that we were blessed to be a part of it.  I also reminded her that God brings the best out of a very bad situation and that this was exactly that.  We have asked her to write a letter to  Bella telling her why she choose to relinquish her to us and that it was not because she didn’t love her…  I hope that she will do that for Bella's sake and for hers. 
.
We find it amazing that somehow God arranged it all to go so smoothly.  What a blessing little Bella is to us.  Truly Gods gift to us.

We just adopted…BELLA is finally home & we are all in love with her!

Josh and I have felt it on our heart for years to adopt even before we had kids.  We have tried several times to look into different options but before things could go very far it would always fall through.   We know that at the core of Gods heart is a longing and a desire for children to have life, be loved and cared for.  Here is the answer to YEARS of prayer and a life saved!!  Introducing BELLA CHRISTIAN NEELEY born Sunday, April 19, 2009 at 7:11 am 3.52 kilos, or 7.74 lbs

“True religion is this to care for the orphans and the widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world”-James 

I got the call on Sun at 1:45 am that Mary had gone into labor and we (Amanda my friend & I) were to meet her at the hospital.  So I got dressed fast and ran in the dark to my friend Amanda's house down the road a ways to get her.  There was a little confusion and we finally got a hold of the guy who was to take us to the hospital (remember neither of our families have cars, and bus’ don’t run in the middle of the night here unless they are just getting done drinking or coming from a kava bar (not good if you are the one getting a ride!).  We had woken him up and it turns out he went right back to sleep! So an hour later we figured out what happened and had to wake Amanda’s husband  Jeff (you can’t go out as a girl with out a guy in the  middle of the night for safety reasons.)  Then we had to pray for a Taxi cause it was the middle of the night and just as I prayed one showed up (we had only seen two vehicles period in the last hour we had been there!)!

Finally after much waiting and praying Little Bella was born at 7 am!  

This photo is of when she was only 20 min old!  Pre bath.  I was the very first person to touch her after delivery except for the nurse who delivered her!  She was under a heat lamp crying while the nurse attended to Mary (birth mother) and I was able to touch her and soothe her.  I was even able to give her her first bath !

The kids and Josh came as soon as they were allowed at about 8:30 on their way to church which happens to be right behind the hospital.  They were all so excited to meet her!

Notice the falling off diaper! Dahlia was crying cause all She got to hold were Bella’s feet.  Pierce and Dahlia just love having a little sister.  Dahlia keeps tugging on my pants saying “I can’t see my baby” when I am holding her. 

This morning she got out of bed saying “Ours baby! Ours baby!”  Like where is our baby?  Usually she yells “mama” and waits for me to get her out of bed.  Unfortunately at this point Bella much prefers if Josh or I hold her…Don’t know why :) 

This is the brave lady who gave Bella to us.  She is sitting with her daughter on her left and her sister on her right.  She is 36 and is not married, and the father is long gone.  Her parents are not willing to take another of her children as they have raised the other kids (the girl above 18 and two boys 7 and 10).  She knew we were her answer to prayer as to what to do concerning the baby.

Giving the baby up was hard for her to do even though she had planned it for months.  It was a bit emotional at the actual passing over when she got off the bus before us.  She didn’t say anything and I croaked out an awkward “Thank you, thank you” not knowing what else to say.  I am pretty sure she didn’t see me crying as I received the baby from her sister who was with her cause she wouldn’t look at me.  I think she was trying not to let me see her emotions.  I  wrote her a letter and stuck it in her bag at the hospital.  I just wanted to go beyond the language barrier and say that we were honored and thanked her for choosing life for our now daughter.  I reminded her that the love we feel for this baby is the same love God has for us (including her) as He says in the Bible he has “adopted” us in to His family.  I continued to tell her that God has a plan for her life and for Bella's life and that we were blessed to be a part of it.  I also reminded her that God brings the best out of a very bad situation and that this was exactly that.  We have asked her to write a letter to  Bella telling her why she choose to relinquish her to us and that it was not because she didn’t love her…  I hope that she will do that for Bella's sake and for hers. 

Please be praying.  we have committed to making this an open adoption where she can come and see the child and when we live on our land further North we will come and bring the whole family to pownogisu where she is from so they can all see her as she grows.  We believe in Gods redemptive work and want to bring healing and not just tear her away.  We have an uncle of the baby's that is a good friend that we want to have teach her her native tongue (local to that village) as well as Bishlama, so that she doesn’t loose her culture. 

We find it amazing that somehow God arranged it all to go so smoothly.  What a blessing little Bella is to us.  Truly Gods gift to us.

Preschool is growing!

World vision came to our school to donate a few toys and small colored books after a request was put in so that was a huge blessing.  We were missing quite a few kids as it had been a bit rainy and we usually cancel for lack of facilitys on a rainy day, but we stayed for the World vision workers (the two ladies one by me and the other by Pierce).

We seem to literally get a few new kids a week, but because the kids get sick so often we maintain our numbers of attendance at about 20.

Some of our kids like this little boy Jimmy are completely neglected!  They come to school dirty, with out having had breakfast (they walk on thier own to school), and when they are sick they are just left in the house on the dirt floor all day alone.  We found out Jimmy had been missing school cause  his parents left him with pink eye in his house alone with a fever and no medicine and no one to take care of him!  SHOCKING…  We are learning who we need to check in on.

The little boy in the blue and red shirt on the right is named Joel and the same thing happend to him.  The teacher went to see where he had been and found him alone on the dirt floor with a fever and a stomache ache dirty and with everyone gone to town.  No one was getting medicine for him or caring for him.  We have also seen signs of abuse that lead us to believe he is NOT treated well. 

Richard above, is only about 3 or 4 but his mom treats him badly and leaves him alone all the time to wander the village.  He often ends up at our house for luch.  He is always welcome, so when he is wandering around with his parents gone and the shack locked up he sometimes comes over.  We are finding that preschool is not the end of our work and figuring out how to show these children love and help them practically is more important than ABC’s.  We are looking into finding out if these children’s parents really want them or if there needs to be some intervention to get them into homes where they will be cared for.

There is so much need here!  We have a family ministries team coming in to work with us at YWAM so we are hoping to arrange parenting classes to help.  These children need an advocate so that is where we feel God has us helping.  Please be praying!

EASTER SUNDAY!!

We had a great Easter Sunday!

I got a few photos of the kids all dressed up since we don’t do it that often.   Here is Dahlia sitting on our step all ready for church.

 

I call these two “Daddy is so funny I peed the couch!”     HM.. That part wasn’t so funny  I should have put a diaper cover on Dahlia!

Pierce leading the charge on the way to the road to catch a bus to church.

          This is the area right in front of our house.  We walk out this road about 1 1/2 blocks to the road where we catch our local transit.  It is a mini van they call a bus that costs about $1.50 per person each way kids are free or sometimes depending on the driver about .50 each way. 

Here is our little church that our friends Julie and Shannon pastor as a ministry to the ex patriots. 

We are helping them to start a Bible study for a few couples that are brand new in the Lord.  we are really looking forward to that.

I know this post is heavy on the kiddo photos but grandparents need that stuff when we are so far away!  Keep in touch

Pierces quote of the week

“I wish I was a black baby.  Then I wouldn’t have to wear a shirt.  You know cause they have sunscreen and bug screen already on!(talking about their skin color, funny little boy)”

We make him wear a shirt so he doesn’t get eaten alive by bugs and sometimes to shield him from the sun.

Neeley’s weekly schedule

We wrote out a day in the life a while back to let  you all know what it is like but since our schedules have drastically changed we thought we would do an update.  Here is our general schedule.

Sunday- WE LOVE Sunday!  We go to a small new (1 year old) expat church.  We really enjoy Shannon and Julie the couple who pastor it.  We have mentioned before what a blessing they are.  Then our favorite part.. We sometimes go to Le Lagon a resort that has amazing swimming pools!  You can go just for the price of a drink or appetizer from the pool snack area so we take full advantage of that!!

Monday-We meet at the YWAM base for worship in the mornings followed by our “community life” meetings keeping up with how our ministrys are going, how the base is running and all those details.  Pierce goes to preschool with out me on those days and I pick him up (by foot or what they call “Adams car” )right after preschool. The rest of the day gets filled fast with naps for the kids, and running to town by bus for groceries. We also have an intercession meeting at our house that we facilitate with other ywamers to plan our Thur Ywam intercession meeting.  We pray figure out what country to pray for the prayer points and some kind of creative display for it (ie posters with cut out photos, drawings, flags, maps etc..)

Tuesday- The kids and I go to preschool from 7:30 am till around 11 am.  Then the rest is pretty free.  Josh usually heads over to the YWAM base to sit in on the morning meeting and then run the construction/building crews currently working on bunk beds for the base.  We usually have half the village’s kids over to play and that keeps us on our toes!

Wednesday-Preschool again for the kids and I 7:30- 11am. Regular day with naps house cleaning, doing laundry by hand and having friends over to play.  Josh is back at the base most times to work with the construction guys again.  Dinner is at the YWAM base that night as mandatory for all staff so we can spend time together, even the familys that live off base.   

Thursday- In the morning we have Ywam base intercession that I head (Pierce goes to Preschool with out me) and staff meetings afterwards.  By lunch we are free and in the evening we have community meetings.  Usually either Josh or I stay home with the kids while the other goes as it is pretty late when it is over to have to walk the kids all the way home through the jungle.  We also try to have some one over for dinner before hand that night.

Friday-preschool is at my house that day and we give the other teacher the day off to do whatever. This is the day we get to watch a learning cartoon on our computer at our place and do a craft or something special.  Again Josh heads to the base to work on whatever needs work.  Last week Josh and 3 guys took the day to head out by local transport (the YWAM base has NO vehichles as the only one broke right before we got here.) to check on a water tank project that had been started to see what was left to do.  They will be taking a DTS team out over a weekend to finish that off.  The rest of the day is free for cleaning, chores, and runs into town.

Saturday- FREE DAY!! We usually start by catching  up on the house and the tons of laundry that needs to be washed as the hand washing is pretty time consuming.  Then we might go to town or relax around the house or whatever.  I am looking forward to the day we have income coming in as one of the first things we will do is hire some help with the laundry and the house.  It is only $10 a day for any washing or house help including watching kids!  We are thinking one or two day a week would really help lighten the laundry load and free up some time as well as support the locals!

We will be starting language classes 2 times a week for 2 hours at a time in the afternoons to learn Bishlama which will be great ! I feel a little crippled at school.  I have learned the basics like….sidown (sit down) staquite (quiet) and of course the basics like “nam blong yu?” (what is your name?) How mas ears yu got? (how old are you)  If you say the words out loud you can hear the similarity.  Bishlama is  a language based on the pigeon the traders came up with years ago so there are a lot of easy words and phrases.  It is pretty fun really!  The kids will pick it up in no time I am sure!

So we stay pretty busy and still have plenty of time for family and getting out.  Our schedule will change when Joshs job actually starts.  We think that will be in a few weeks.  And if all goes well with the adoption THINGS WILL DEFINETLY CHANGE as I plan on staying home for the first few weeks doing nothing so I can bond with baby and figure out all her or his needs (feeding? etc..)  That will be plenty overwhelming and we will need a little time to adjust.  Everyone at preschool and YWAM are aware of this so that helps. 

Baby coming soon! (due date around Easter)

We spoke to the mamma again about her due date after a check up and the doctor there wanted her to stay in North Efate till Thursday April 9th and then she will get the necessary paper work to be able to have the baby at the hospital  here.  She would like to spend Easter with her family and then she will be coming out here to stay with some family till the baby comes!  So the due date was stretched out till after the 9th and we are hoping baby doesn’t come till the Tues after Easter when she comes here to town.  We (my Australian friend Amanda who has adopted here and speaks Bislama and myself) want to meet her at the hospital no matter what time and bring the baby home from there. 

She is feeling very confident from what it sounds like to adopt out and is not having second thoughts so that is exciting.  We are also really feeling all will go through and we are very excited.  We are praying for our precious baby even in the womb.  A human life is an AWESOME ( I mean it in the most literal way) responsibility and we don’t take it lightly.  We have been trying to get ready physically, emotionally and spiritually, as well as trying to prepare the kids as well.  Not sure you can really fully do that but we are working on it.  Reading lots of books on adoptive families and how to care for a new born adopted baby.  WOW. more complicated than a natural born baby for sure!! A lot of additional issues for sure, so please be praying for us.  We will keep you all informed as we progress1

Movie day with the preschool at my house!

Every Friday is movie day at my house for the preschool.  We crowd around the computer for an educational show as part of our class as a special treat!  Everyone loves it.    Our class grows every day almost!  We are now up to 20 kids.  We were missing several due to pink eye.  Pierce is really suffering from pink eye at the moment.  Poor kid.  Pink eye seems to go around like colds.  Dahlia is Just recovering from her third bought!

We just had several kids join who were going to local schools but ran out of funds for school fees.  We are working on getting a few more volunteers and we are meeting weekly to start adjusting the lesson plans and planning crafts etc..  It seems to be going really well.