Mira, Myra, My Lord and Me

Ok, I have to write down what happened today because it was so encouraging to me. Since we gave our dog, Mira, to her new owner nine days ago, I have really been missing her. This morning during my prayer time I cried about Mira, sharing with God how much I miss her and how I hoped she was adjusting ok to her new home and wondered if her new owner (Get this, her name is Myra!)was happy about her decision to take Mira. Today was the day we had to drive our stuff for our Africa shipment to Kansas City, so a friend of ours drove up to the house this morning and traded his truck & trailer for our van. He is a physician and a couple minutes later he called and said he'd left his stethoscope in the truck. Josh and I drove it to his office and when I walked in to hand it to the receptionist, I heard "Well, hello, Nancy!" I turned around and there was Myra! So I sat with her for a couple of minutes and she shared that she had been praying for us. Then she said that Mira is just crazy about her, follows her everywhere and wants her attention all the time and that she loves the dog. I had to go, but I gave Myra a big hug and my thanks. I have told my children many times that God cares about animals, that He counts our tears and cares deeply about the things in our hearts. Today was my turn to be reminded. I don't believe in coincidences. God knew what I needed and provided the answer as only He can. Just last Sunday morning our pastor prayed for us and asked God to "just love on the Burtons". I'll have to let him know that God has been doing just that.

Full Speed Ahead

I haven't forgotten to blog, I just haven't had time. We have had our van in the shop again. Old story. Hopefully it will be finished soon. We went camping this past week with some friends of ours. Primitive camping. Bring your own water and dig your own potty camping. We were right on the bank of the Current River. The kids got to play in the water. Our friends have horses and brought them along so we all got to take turns riding horses in some really beautiful country. We had a blast until Friday. Friday morning, David woke up in pain and having trouble breathing. By the time we broke camp and drove four hours to home he was worse. One of our friends with us is a doctor so he checked David out and promptly sent him to the hospital. He has pericarditis, an inflammation in the sac surrounding his heart. We aren't sure if it is viral or if it was brought on by a response to his yellow fever vaccine. He got to come home yesterday and is slowly regaining his strength. The doctor said his heart wasn't damaged and he should be himself again in a few weeks. We are going crazy packing and sorting. Last week we also said goodbye to our dog and turned her over to her new owner. She went to a really sweet lady who I know will be kind to her, but it still hurt all of us to let her go. We miss her. We also celebrated Daniel's 8th birthday. I have pics from the campout but in all the chaos of taking care of David I left my cameras at our friends' house and didn't have it for Daniel's birthday celebration. I used Josh's camera but his flash is broken. If any of them turn out I'll post some later. We are taking some stuff to David's brother's for storage, wrapping up loose ends, packing for Canada, trying to plan a yard sale, and hopefully leaving on Monday, so I'll probably not be blogging for a while. We expect to arrive in Canada on the 24th. We'll have a week to get Josh enrolled in school and get school supplies and learn our way around town before school starts. So, our adventure is going full-speed and about to take a turn in a new direction. We are excited, but there are constant reminders that we can't do this in our own strength. Praise God that we don't have to and aren't supposed to!