BEST birthDAY EVERRR!!!

1 John 3:1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called his children! And that is what we are!

Can you name the movie that the title of this post is quoting? If you know me well, you totally can and you are laughing right now;). I just had the best birthday ever! And I have had some pretty spectacular birthdays! I love birthdays, Jesus's birthday, your birthday, my birthday, America's birthday...love.them.all! I just love a reason to celebrate! I also LOVE a reason to host a good party and show people some love! I also LOVE giving gifts:)! Let me first tell you about some of my amazing birthdays and then you can get a picture of how GREAT this birthday was:).

Disclaimer: I was/am spoiled. It's not my fault...please choose to love me still:). 

Ok, on my 6th, 16th, 18th and practically 23nd birthdays, I received cars as gifts, (one of them was a life-size barbie corvette, but still...). At least two of my birthdays involved a limo or a limo-bus. Starting at 13, every year my mom gave me as many roses as I was years old. On my 21st birthday, I was skiing in Vail and my awesome friends gave me a shot of water at midnight:). The next night, my dad's old business partner in Denver took me and three friends out for my birthday on a progressive kind of schedule, one place for drinks, one place (my favorite place!) for dinner and then for dessert we went to a place where all the waiters sing songs from musicals (beautifully!), are you kidding me?!! One year, some fabulous friends and I rented out the little room where you sit on the floor in a Thai restaurant on pillows and then I got to talk about all of them, how I knew them and why I loved being their friend! SO FUN! I believe that same year, two sweet friends agreed to do an improv skit for me after dinner, hahaha! Yes! Last year, I woke up to balloons and flowers in my kitchen and then drove with one of my sweetest friends to Des Moines to hang out with MORE sweet friends and then onto Colorado where I was covered with love from family that I love! Aaaaah, I am blessed! But this year has been the best so far:).

The start of the day was sweet! I was excited to wake up and hang out with my favorite guy (Jesus:), I knew I'd have to get up early to get some quality time with him as the country director's kids stayed the night in the house where I live, plus his niece and nephew...that's 8 kids and 4 of them are crazy early risers! So, while it was still dark, I started my birthday in the stillness with Jesus:). I had been saving my last Starbucks instant coffee for this day:). Then, as I have been doing for the last few years, I read Oswald Chamber's, 'My Utmost for His Highest' for January 9th. I'm sorry, but January 9th is the best one! I'm sure your birthday's devotion in Utmost is great, but mine is the best:). My favorite part reads:

Read the 139th Psalm; the Psalmist implies – "Thou art the God of the early mornings, the God of the late at nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea; but, my God, my soul has further horizons than the early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature – Thou Who art the God of all these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot trace, dreams I cannot get at – my God, search me out."

http://utmost.org/classic/intercessory-introspection-classic/

So sweet:). Then I spent time thanking God for this last year, for every difficult blessing and every easy blessing, for all that he's taught me and is teaching me. For keeping me in him thus far and praying that each year I would be closer to him than the previous; each year, that I would be closer to being the woman he created me to be:). It was a sweet start to the morning as the sun started to rise:). Then the kids also started to rise! 

Everyone was greeting me and saying happy birthday, so fun! Then this thing greeted me on the way to take a shower! Ew. It took two books and two shoes to kill that bad boy (I like to stand at a distance and throw things). Yuck. I've killed some of his brothers...his smaller brothers, apparently I missed one. 

Anyways, then it was time to prepare for the party. As I thought about what I wanted to do on my birthday here, I got super excited about the idea of having a giant birthday party at one of the care points in which we celebrate ALL the kids birthdays of 2014, give them cake, cookies, juice, meat, good food and GIFTS! AAAAAH!! SO FUN!!! So, I spent aaalll the week baking and chasing down precious ingredients! I made 5 cakes and 200 cookies (Annie's Ma's Cookies, to be precise;))! It was so fun! Even the one night, when I had just mixed the vanilla cake and the strawberry cake at the same time, so I could marble each of them...and then...the power went out. And it...was...dark. Ha! I fumbled around and found my computer and got a light. Then I started making dinner in the dark, with a candle...then my candle went out and wouldn't light anymore, ha! So I was trying to pound garlic without loosing it and chop a tomato and not my finger! I was praying...'God, I know it's kind of selfish, but please turn the power back on...' And the power came back on! It was hardly even out for 30 minutes! Yes! That never happens!! Anyway, so I did a lot of baking and shopping for party supplies. I also had an African dress made and one of my friends/co-workers took me to get a pedicure (it was $2...no way). 

SO, the morning of the party, I filled 200 water balloons and made sure all the supplies were ready to go and made sure there were people to bring the cakes later, so they wouldn't melt. In Africa, they make the frosting on cakes a certain way so it gets really hard, I suppose so it doesn't melt. I just made good old powdered sugar frosting and so...mine would melt, ha! 

Grab a sponge with your mouth race:)

The party was awesome:). The kids were there already singing praise and worship when we arrived! After praise and worship, I made sure they all knew that it was THEIR birthday party!! Not just mine and that my birthday wish was for them to have a great day and to celebrate their birthdays!! We played tons of games in competition for the team that would get the cake cutting privileges. Water balloon games, racing games, water bomb games...I love water games:). It was so fun! We did face painting and team cheers! 

Demonstration from the referees.

The best picture of cake cutting as we were trying to avoid rain! :)

The CHC staff!

The kids got to eat dried meet (like beef jerky...kinda). They ate cookies and drank juice! Then they got to eat rice, beans AND meat:)! Then it was time for cake cutting, so the winning team came up to the tables and they put on hats, grabbed knives and some of them twisted 'party poppers,' that blow shiny confetti into the air (AWESOME!) I was like a kid at the fair! Then every kid got a good-sized piece of cake:)! At Christmas, all 200 kids share one small cake and I just wanted them to have an abundance, because they are soo special:)! So we cut cake, we ate cake! Then it was time for gifts!! For gifts, they got school books, laundry soap and smearing cream! All things they realllly need and usually can't manage themselves. They got two new footballs (soccer balls) for the care point as well, which they loved:)! The whole Children's Hope Chest office staff came, which was awesome and the kids LOVED IT! AND one of the kids that I sponsor gave me a chicken for my birthday! Gifts like that make me so happy and so sad at the same time, because I know I've never sacrificed anything like that myself. The kind of sacrifice where you literally give up an opportunity for your family to eat meat, simply to honor another person. Wow. And it was definitely the first time I've received a live chicken for my birthday:). It is now happily running around the compound outside my house...for now.

Lilian with her gifts! (ISN'T SHE THE CUTEST!?)

My Christine and my CHICKEN:)!

Look at those sweet faces...and look at those sweet clouds behind them!

THEN THE BEST PART! It poured rain!! I know that doesn't necessarily sound like a good thing, but wait! The morning of my birthday, my friend Mercy told me that in Africa, people pour water on their friends heads when it's their birthdays! Well, Mercy didn't pour any water on me...but God did:). Because he loves me so. He DUMPED out his water on my head. It is the dry season here, not the rainy season and it didn't rain at the office in Soroti...just the side where we were:).

God has been reminding me this year how much he loves me. I know that God loves me...but by the way I think, I don't always live like I believe that. The way I think is more prone towards being the best so that He will love me. I know that I can't do anything to earn his love or to earn salvation, but my actions sometimes suggest otherwise. Honestly, I have a hard time singing the song 'How He Loves'...because I'd rather sing songs about who He is, than about who I am. I believe God loves other people! I tell them all the time! As I look back on this year, I can see his love and provision in my life so evidently. In things different people have said to me, in the way different things have played out, in my travels, in my different jobs, in my relationships, in the weather, in the sunrise and sunset...and of course, in His Word.  He really does love us so. He really is working all things for our good...and for His glory. I feel like my time here, spending a lot of time alone, has been a sweet time to become friends with Jesus, to really learn to trust him and who he says he is. And most of all, to confirm in my heart, that I really love him most. More than anything! More than anyone! I feel like at the same time, he is also teaching me to graciously except the gifts he places in my life, because he loves me. And not to be a prideful kid who refuses her dad's sweet gifts of joy, but to accept his gifts...and to share them; to use them for his glory.  

And of course, I come home to a million (exaggeration:)...posts and messages from my family and friends who love me...which was awesome, thank you:). 

Lastly, God gave me the snapshots below. He knows I love me a little African sun in the evening:). God, you are so good to me. Thank you for all of the ways that you have blessed my 27 years of life and challenged me to be the child that you created me to be; thank you for choosing me. And, Father, thank you so much for those sweet kids and the joy I got to see you put on their faces today:). 

Thank you, Abba Father. I love you. Amen. :)