And they're off...

This morning before the sun arose I pulled Traeton out of bed to shower and hit the road to Juarez, Mexico for his very first mission trip! He and Todd are joining a very large group, about 57, from our Sunday school class to build houses for the extremely impoverished in Juarez.

Todd and Trae have been working toward this trip for quite a while and Traeton is beyond excited to do God's work! He is bubbling over with anticipation. I pray his little perspective on life would be rocked and he would never again fall into the self-righteous mindset in which he currently lives, not unlike most seven-year-olds in Highlands Ranch, CO.

I will post pictures as soon as I have them!

Also, I have neglected to post that I, myself, will be leaving the country. Next week, on election day and Lisa Bowden's birthday, I will be taking off for the Philippines and Thailand. I will be spending 11 days with my childhood friend, Julie Gooden and her family. They're living in Manila for a few years and I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to visit this part of the world, a part I may never again be able to go.

Busy times in the Burmeister home!

Pierced with Pride

Today I had the privilege of hearing Fern Nichols speak. Mrs. Nichols is the founder of Moms In Touch, a prayer organization for mothers of students, any age, any 'grade'. The purpose of Moms In Touch is to cover every school in the world with prayer one school at a time. Ideally, each and every school is covered in prayer by a small group of mothers whose children attend that school. Naturally, my Moms In Touch prayer group is for Stone Mountain Elem, Traeton's school.

One focus of her talk today was on pride, the root of every sin. Pretty hefty statement, eh?

This is what constitutes pride:
A prideful person:
-is confident in how much they know and flaunts it
-focuses on other's failures
-puts others on probation and waits for them to fall again
-can't bear to fail or have others see them less than perfect
-is a work-a-holic or a perfectionist
-drives others
-places unrealistic expectations on self and others
-tries to control people and circumstances
-independent spirit who does it all because others can't do it good enough
-doesn't think they have anything to repent
-must prove I am right
-must have the last word, 'I told you so'
-desires to be known as successful
-doesn't want their sin discovered
-wounded when others get credit or is overlooked
-elated by praise
-deflated by criticism

What constitutes a broken/humble person:
A humble person:

-admits they don't know it all
-doesn't try to have an answer for everything
-accepts limitations
-focuses on own spiritual needs
-trusts in God and waits on him to act
-gives up the right to hurt back
-dependant spirit
-admits just can't do it all
-willing to yield the right to be right
-desires to make others successful
-willing to be exposed
-seeks forgiveness
-has a continual heart of repentance
-any received praise belongs to Christ
-criticism makes them a better person
-doesn't try to justify criticism

Oh, wow, sigh... Unfortunately I carry far more of the prideful traits than the humble ones. The characteristics of a humble person are not completely foreign to me. I know this is what I strive to be, broken and humble and sometimes it is true of me. But more often I self-righteously walk around pierced with pride.

Lord, renew a right spirit within me...

Playin' Hokey

This Tuesday we played hokey! All five of us just completely cut out for the day. Well, almost all of us, Todd was post call so he had the day off anyway and Elias has no commitments so he really didn't cut out on anything. But the rest of us did! It was exhilarating!

Traeton has had a very tough year so far, his teacher has been out of school for a whole month with pneumonia so they've had some subs in and out of his room. The long-term sub was doing a great job and just getting the class caught-up when she fell and broke her ankle! More subs... So Tuesday we kept him out of school and out of the chaos of the sub-led classroom.

I missed my Tuesday morning Beth Moore study and Addison missed piano class.

This is what we did!