Home Again...

The Dominican Republic team made it home safely! We were all securely in bed by 1:00 a.m. Monday morning, I suspect. In talking with some of the team members, it seems we were in and out of sleep comas all day Monday. Ha, ha, ha!

Again, I tell you the team had so much fun laughing and reminiscing on the plane and over dinner at the airport about our Dominican Republic girls. We also loved it that you were already giving money to pay it forward to the missionary women in Prague for the next retreat in October. You gave us money before we left the country, and one of you has already used on-line giving. Just so you girls can know...You have already sponsored one missionary and the head, arms, and legs of a second one! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Thank you for paying it forward. Also, thank you for paying forward the information about Pure Joy to your missionary friends; and thank you to those of you that have sent me a contact person to pray over for other missionary women in other countries. Thank you for being willing to give and thank you for learning to ‘receive’ this past week!!

Thank you also for the affirmation and awesome words of gratitude that are pouring in from you. It was our greatest joy as a team to be able to pour out into your lives the very things we believe God poured into our lives to share with you. He is a gracious God!

Big ‘kudos’ for those of you that are already trying to put into practice things you learned this week. Remember, give the people in your lives time to adjust and don’t smother them with your new insights! Ha, ha, ha, ha!

Counting it All Joy on our End!!!

His,

Vickie

P.S. I will finish our Love Commands later this week!

Dominican Republic - Saturday

Today (Saturday) was our last day with the ladies! The worship and messages were God’s ending for the book He begin writing for this group over 6 months ago! They have been writing the last chapter this past 4 days and will continue to write sequels as they go forth and pour into the lives of other women here and equip them to Live and Tell the Good News of Jesus Christ!! He changes our lives!!!

Haiti girls, I hope you all made it safely home but of course it gave me great joy to sit and visit with you that extra time. Karen C., you keep the rest of us single women posted on your life and what God is up to and if we need to get a copy of that book! Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha

Deborah C., my mom is going to crack up when I tell her the story of that card for the gift bag! Jami M., you better make sure you write me when the name of that precious little girl is finally announced!

And for all the rest of you, we had so much fun at dinner reflecting back over conversations and laughter and things shared even from the team. Lisa would like to remind us ALL what is said in Dominican Republic stays in DR! ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha

We will have some pictures up for you all soon on the web site. I will send you a note letting you know when.

Thank you for your hearts, your worship, your fellowship, and all the fun, and let me say this in closing…We are impressed with YOU “NOW”!!

Please so thank your husbands for sharing you with us this week. To the single ladies, the same to your ministries for sharing you.  You all have given us Great Joy!!

To all that have prayed us through this week you will NEVER know the battle you have done on the team and missionaries behalves. And we literally could ‘feel’ the prayers!

Alli, Faith shared with us how quickly you went to work putting some of the communication stuff into application! WE LAUGHED OUR HEADS OFF!!! Please, when Erin gets the Face Book page set up for you all….you MUST SHARE THAT STORY!!!

We love you all and all our Friends of Pure Joy! Also, one last word…Thank you sooooooo much to those of you that came and gave myself and several other team members money to PAY IT FORWARD to sponsor a missionary women for the Prague Czech Republic Trip coming up in Oct! That makes my heart SMILE!!!

Love you all,

His,

Vickie

Dominican Republic - Friday

We have had an incredible day!! Kathy started out with an awesome message on warfare! So powerful! Lisa followed with a great message on marriage relationships. I cannot say any more about that because the missionary women and the DR team agreed that what is said in the Dominican Republic stays in the Dominican Republic. Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha  

The ladies continue to enjoy the worship, messages, free time by the pool, meals, etc. Good thing we sweated off the 10 lbs the first day because we have gained it all back now. We have done more laughing with this group of ladies!!! They are so funny that tonight I had to remind them that we (the team) will make the jokes.

The ladies opened their goodie bags tonight for those of you that made one for them. They were sooooooo excited!!!! I could not believe what some of you did for those women. More than that, I cannot believe what some of you were able to get in those bags.

Tomorrow will be our last day with the ladies. Please pray. God really is working in the lives of these ladies this week to encourage them and give them a place to share their hearts and needs.

Love you all,

His,

Vickie

Dominican Republic - Thursday

Today has been an incredible day. The team that God put together for this retreat has been so perfect for this season. Today Kathy, Kim, and Deb spoke to the ladies and shared their hearts. Brian, if you are reading this, tell Ben all the ladies love him! They got to see him signing a song with his mom. Carl, today Deb shared on safety. She gave us a list of the top 5 areas where people are injured from a lack of safety awareness.

The top of the list was trips, slips, and falls. Second one was burns and something else and then the rest of the list. I made that top two list by noon on Wednesday by falling down a flight of stairs (with style, I might add) and I by burning my arm with the iron (the bad part is I was not even ironing! Ha,ha,ha we’ll talk.)  Gary, you will be glad to know that Kathy’s message went well as I knew it would! If only she could have known that sooner! Ha,ha

Please pray as Lisa speaks this morning and Deb, Kathy, and I speak again today. Melody, our media person, had a virus get on her computer and lost a lot of content for this retreat and other work she was doing. Please pray for God to restore as much of that as He sees fit! She’ll take all of it but she will settle for any of it!

My dear givers, prayer warriors, and friends of Pure Joy, these women are so LOVING the gifts! The Potato bags have been a big hit. Also, the wash clothes that were handmade were perfect, because as always they do not give you a wash cloth in foreign countries. Can anyone help me understand that? They give you the rest of the towels. Hmmmmmm  

Pray that God continues to minister as we pour into the lives of these women! To all the families of the team members…everyone is doing well.  The warfare here is incredible but our God is Greater!!!

We love you all,

His,

Vickie

Dominican Repbulic - Wednesday...

Yeah, the Retreat started today!! The ladies made it in and they are a beautiful bunch for sure! There are no words to describe what it is like to spend time with your “people group.” The people group of Pure Joy is missionary women all over the world.

God is already up to some really amazing things. We had two missionary women that cancelled and we only found out about it today. We still had 6-7 people on the waiting list. Well, because we had a ministry staff person in the states that could track the list for us, we were able to move to of those missionary women up from the waiting list. I am telling you those girls are just a little more than EXCITED!! Ha,ha,ha

It is fun to watch the missionary women get to know each other and to watch the team moving amongst them. We had the privilege of carrying most of their luggage for them to their rooms today. It is so difficult for them to receive because they are on the giving and serving end so much. The benefit we received as a team is most of us probably lost 10 lbs of water weight! Ha,ha,ha,ha  

Praise and worship was wonderful and Faith has us all cracking up during her message titled “Good for a Laugh”. We did learn that God frequents Wal-Mart. At least to talk to Faith that is! Ha,ha,ha,ha,

Pray that the missionary women and staff will get good rest each night so we can always be ready to receive all that God has for us! 

I must tell you folks at home that are praying….I have NEVER felt the prayers from back home like we have felt them already here!  Amazing!  And much needed because the warfare here is incredible!

Love you all,

His,

Vickie

Dominican Republic - Monday

The team was up early to take off sightseeing and to do a little bit of shopping. We actually ended up spending most of our day at Altos de Chavón and only had about 30 minutes of shopping time, which means, we really didn’t do any shopping! When you have 9 women from the U.S.A. going shopping 30 minutes is just not enough time! Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha

Not to worry, we will have one last opportunity on Tuesday before the actual retreat begins. So fear not there is hope for gifts to make it home with us!

I do want to encourage you to go to the web and read about the place we visited today.  It was an incredible place. You can read about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altos_de_Chav%C3%B3n

This afternoon when we got back to the hotel we spent time in preparations for the retreat.  I am writing this at 11:16 p.m. here and we just finished our team devotional and prayer time. It was an incredible time with the team!  This is uniquely the team God has chosen for this season. I am amazed as someone who has had the privilege to be a part of every team that has ever traveled with Pure Joy, to see how God hand picks His team for each area of the world we travel to.  

I also want to ask you to pray for one of our ladies that had registered to join us this week. Her name is Kate.  Her husband had a motorcycle accident and is immobilized for 10 days. They have 7 children. She felt like she needed to drop out and stay home. Not because of the 7 children, but because as we women know one sick man equals much more than 7 children. Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha  Just having some fun! However, please pray for she and her husband as he recovers.

I apologize for the delay in getting this out sooner tonight but I’m on Dominican Republic time. That looks like this: 10 minutes = 1 hour and “on our way” = sometime before the return of Christ. No, I’m not kidding. Ha,ha

Love you all,

His,

Vickie

P.S.  Last night I left one of the husbands out of the line up for our Arkansas men.  Ronnie please forgive me? We would absolutely not know what to do if Faith wasn’t here with us. She has kept us all laughing while she has spent 2 days crying and the retreat hasn’t even started yet!! I’m suspecting you sent her out of the country due to hormones!!  Ha,ha,ha,ha,

Greetings to the Friends of Pure Joy...

Your prayers have been answered and the team has arrived safely to the Dominican Republic and we are checked in to our hotel. God has literally carried us on angel’s wings. The group from Little Rock got to Atlanta at about 8:15. This allowed us to get to our departure gate with our stuff. I then posted Julie on the bags and Faith and Kim went to wait on the Tulsa and Austin ladies to arrive while Lisa and I went to meet our Houston arrival. His timing was perfect to gather everyone up and the trip to Dominican was relaxing. Well ok, except for the extremely turbulent spots at times but who is counting that!

The weather is warmer than we expected but I suspect we will be fine. It was so sweet to finally meet Erin, our contact missionary, face to face. She and Nayely (Hotel contact) were much needed today. The team has been just hanging out and getting to know each other better. Today we had our first team meeting with everyone present in person. Also, this evening Kim did our first 'devotional' on the unity of the body. Great devotion! Everyone is tired and headed to their rooms for the night. I will be joining them in a few moments. Just wanted you to know we are here.

Please continue to pray as we continue to let our hearts be molded for His Glory!

Also, a BIG THANK YOU to Bryan, David, and Gary for getting up and getting your beautiful wives to the airport when the rest of the world was very much still sleeping!! Ha, Ha.

To my "movie star girl", Thank you for being such an encouragement to your mom!!!! You know who you are!

I will write again tomorrow night and finish our journey on the Ten Commandments.

Love you all,
His,
Vickie