How I got a warrant for my arrest.

For those of you who are wondering what on earth happened... No, I didn't do anything illegal. My story involves the family dog, lost pet tags and a bounced check, all while I was about to get married.

A week or two before my wedding our dog Rosie ran away. She was notorious for roaming the neighborhood getting pregnant, eating neighbor's avocados (or sometimes mcdonald's) and bathing in the Hemley's fountain in front of their beautiful 'mansion'. On this particular escapade the dog patrol - or whatever the heck they are called - found her and picked her up. Someone said that she belonged to the Pahl family just down the road.

We opened the door this particular day to find our stupid dog and a lady from the pound standing there. Our dog didn't have her tags on. The lady asked for the tags, none of us had any idea where the darn things were. My mom was at the grocery store and only she knew where they were located. The lady struck a deal with my dad. If he could give her a check for the fine, she would hold the check without cashing it for 24 hours. He just had to bring in proof of her "license and registration" or whatever and they'd give the check back. If any of you know my dad you'll know that he would be LOST without my mom. My dad doesn't know where the check books are kept. He says "Hey Brooke - you write her a check and I'll take the tags over as soon as my gets back. " I told the lady there was NO money in my account, I'd already moved the little bit I had into Sam's bank account. NO problem they said.. we won't cash the check... Famous last words...

My parents took the tags into the pound that afternoon and that was that, right???

I got married, went on my honeymoon and life was grand. I come home from my honeymoon and went to Chris Wimber's funeral. It was then, at the funeral that my dad showed me the notice. I might have even saved it. It said that there was a warrant out for my arrest. Ok - I'm just glad I didn't get stopped on my way out of the country!!! Needless to say we have a friend who is a judge. He was at the funeral and he took care of it for me. So I'm free and clear. :)

Then there's the time Sam and I and our friends were picked up by the police for illegally entering a city in Tibet. We were escorted to another city for question...... that's another story for another day.

Hannah.... I think we'll buy her a saxaphone next. She's hilarious in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_jveGn2gSc

And here's a message from Keilah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fepj31F7YIo

Here's a message from Joshua.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmcA_5rFeZw

SNOW!

Today we got our first Kansas City snow. It was beautiful to wake up to a white world instead of the ugly brown we've been staring at for two weeks.

The kids were excited to drive their wagon around the yard making tracks in the white powder. In fact, Joshua was so excited that he ran outside to build a snowman without any gloves. Lesson learned (for now at least). He cried for 30 minutes straight while his hands thawed out. They even went sledding down the 'hill' out front. They tried to slide down their play set into the snow, but there wasn't much there to land. A little more snow would have made that a fun adventure.

The sun came out and melted some of it so tonight we have ice. I'm hoping we can get one more snow in tonight! Definitely a night for a warm fire.

The Blog

I will be the first to admit that I am not a writer. I hated Language Arts and was never great with grammar. After studying Spanish in school then later Chinese and Tibetan it only made the English language more confusing to me. However for the sake of my friends and family (OK, mostly family) I will attempt to keep a blog with all of our happenings. So as long as everyone ignores the inevitable errors I will make then I'll be just fine.

I know many of you are wondering where live now. We've done some big moves the last 11 years. NO we are not back in Tibet. We aren't even in Kansas - contrary to popular belief. We're in Kansas City, Missouri (known to some as misery). In case you failed geography in school and are wondering where on earth Missouri is, we are located somewhere in the middle of America. Centrally located to either coast. What a bonus!

Why Missouri? Well, we're still asking God that. We put a request in for Hawaii, but somehow ended up in another cold climate. Actually, God moved us here. It all started with one simple prayer that began last year (or rather almost 8 years ago when we moved back from Tibet). We told the Lord we were "bored" and wanted to be apart of His great adventures and really wanted more. Let me tell you, be careful what you wish for, or in this case pray for. He actually listens!

Through a series of events that began last summer God began speaking to us about opening a door to full time ministry. Sam had a great job working for a great company and we were very comfortable. Our parents both lived within 5 minutes drive of our house and were ready and willing to babysit at a moment's notice. I was (and still am) running my travel agency and we were leading a great young adult group at our house. We had it made really. But we asked for more. We knew He had put so much in our hearts and knew that that something had to change, but we didn't know what, when, where or how.

For the sake of time I'll fast forward through the summer to the middle of November. There's an entire story I'm skipping which leads up to this point, most of it still amazes me, but that's another topic for another day. Anyway, back to November. We decided to fly out to Kansas City to visit Sam's brother and his family. Our agenda was, visit family, sit in prayer room and get direction, figure life out. That was it. As we were driving to his brother's home we started 'bashing' Kansas City. We talked about what horrible place it would be to live in. No ocean! No Mountains! No leaves (remember it's winter time)! No restaurants (slight exaggeration I know)! Later that day God dropped an opportunity into our laps for Sam to come and join the staff of an amazing organization called The Call, which is associated with the International House of Prayer in KC. Their caveat? That we be here the beginning of January. We flew home the next day, packed up our house, cleaned, painted, found a renter, Sam quit his job, we found a house to rent in Kansas City, got a moving truck and came. No questions asked (OK we did complain a lot on the way). Now we are just trying to get settled in to our new place.

What exactly is Sam doing? Honestly, I'm not too sure yet. Ask me again in a month when he's been working there a bit and we have a better idea. Or maybe we'll know more next week. Check out the website though, www.thecall.com and you will get an idea of what they are all about.

I know this, we are about to embark on a great adventure. Anytime you are doing what the Lord wants you to do it's an adventure. I don't know exactly where it will take us or what it will look like. Every time I think I have it figured out He surprises me, so I've stopped trying to figure it out and to just go with the flow. I know there are a lot of dreams and visions that Sam and I have carried for many years now and hope to see some of those begin to unfold now. I'm excited. Nervous, but excited.

So stay tuned and we'll keep you updated on our happenings, travels, news etc.

Oh, the kids!! How could I forget them??? They are doing great. They miss their grandparents oh so much, but they are enjoying meeting all the new people out here. My biggest prayer was that the transition for the kids would be easy and that they would make good friendships right away. Right now they are getting an overload of kids and we couldn't be happier for them. Hopefully some good close friendships will be forged out of these new relationships that are blossoming. And yes, Hannah FINALLY cut her first tooth after 14 months of no teeth. She now has FOUR teeth. You can barely see the bottom two, but you can feel them! I'm pretty sure based on her behaviour today that there's about 40 more teeth trying to come in right now. She's not happy.

Until later.....