Refreshing, but tiring!

Today was a fabulous day to remember how much fun it is to work with students!  I helped with spaying and neutering 60-some dogs and cats today at Lincoln Memorial University.  Our assembly line of animals coming to the two of us surgeons was something to behold.  It was fun to watch the students get into their groove practicing their technical skills and helping each other learn. 

Perhaps the most enjoyable for me though was the time I got to spend with various students in the surgery suite.  Enforced time with me means you have to chat!  I learned about one graduate's passion for anesthesia and education, another student's brother serving with IMB in Europe, and yet another's whose sister has a new album being released (which my dad apparently played some tracks on).  

The student with a missionary brother was surprised to hear about Christian Veterinary Mission, so it was great to share with her how her vet tech skills can be used to further God's kingdom!

Overall, it was a great reminder of how eager I am to be living life with my students in Bolivia! Looking forward to the surgery table and cattle working discussions we will have!

Oh, the tiring part--30+ surgeries for me in approximately 6 hours, thank goodness Dr. Burchette was there too to share the load.  We were also so blessed to have our wonderful friend Dr. Jennifer Johnson there too to manage all the animals in recovery!

A departure from the usual blog, but we had a really cool 9th birthday yesterday and I'd like to share a bit about it! We are huge Tolkein fans, so a Hobbit party was just
the ticket for Caleb.


"In a hole in the barn there lived a hobbit.  Not a dirty,wet hole, but a snug barn loft..."

Our downstairs neighbor!

 Caleb was Burglar Baggins and his friends were outfitted with dwarf beards.  After a brief description of the the story for those who didn't, the kids were given a map across the Misty Mountains to the Lonely Mountain and Smaug. 

 With the soundtrack playing in the background we blunted the knives and chipped the plates--the kids thought it was hilarious to throw paper plates and bowls around the loft and at each other!

Flying plates!

Troll tag--one was appointed the troll and tried to tag the dwarves.
Bilbo could free them, and game was over when
 the sun came up--flashlight on the troll.
All were rewarded with glowstick swords, "Sting" from the troll's trove

Caleb and his "precious" won from Gollum's game
of riddles in a  cave of black plastic in the eaves.

We then entered Mirkwood forest and ate some chocolate
pretzel spiders.

Burglars had to free the "dwarves" from the spiderwebs
(individual  bags of candy in lieu of a regular pinata).

Last stop: Lonely Mountain. Pin the arrow on Smaug's missing scale to reclaim the treasure (gold and gem candies).  

Bag End cake.  Sadly the house was warm and out chocolate tree on top melted!

Gandalf and the dwarves arrive!

Gifts!  Creative wrapping in Elvish from
awesome Uncle Rick!  Fantastic presents from all-thanks for all the fun things!

Lembas for the journey ahead

 Thanks to our friends and family that crowded 18 people into our tiny apartment and hay loft to make a memorable event for us all.  Blessings to Caleb in his ninth year of life and the beginning of the adventure that lies ahead.  Thanks to "The Given Life" blog for inspiration http://welivethegivenlife.blogspot.com.

 

January Prayer Letter

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R.A.I.N.  Revive, Affirm, Intercede, Nourish January 2013 Resolution Keeping A new year, a new semester, new everything in the works!  Same God though!  How are you doing on your New Year’s resolutions, now that we are a week or so in? A teacher friend was just talking about her excitement every new semester because you truly get a fresh start—new students, new course material, new schedule.  That is such an exciting thing to have multiple times a year compared to other jobs that seem to drag on the same way for days to years. Guess what, though?!  God makes us new and refreshes us every day to try new and exciting things for His sake.  Lamentations 3:22-23 reminds us, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  We don’t have to be professors to enjoy that fresh start! Whether our job changes or stays the same, our attitude toward it and who we are serving through it can be refreshed every day. With this, I challenge you to add another resolution!  To accept God’s mercy every morning and proclaim it boldly to others. We are getting more and more excited about our theoretical “change” in job description.  Is our job really changing though?  All of God’s children are called to “go and make disciples” wherever we are, so only our location is changing.  Yes, our daily lives will be different, but our calling remains. See these happy smiles? These are some of the girls at a girls’ home (orphanage) in Santa Cruz with their chickens.  This will be one of the small differences in our lives—this project was begun by my predecessor and involves veterinary students in the care of chickens.  This enables these kids to have extra protein and learn how to raise their own chickens so they can eat now and in the future. We are so looking forward to getting there ASAP, especially since Lauren Spears, another CVM vet, has returned to the US to serve in a different role with CVM.  There is a huge gap to fill where she was at the university and in communities, so we really feel the pressure to be there serving.  Just a few dozen more people committed to monthly financial support and we can look at one-way tickets!  Will you help us? Bathed in His new mercies,   Kim & David Carney kimcarneydvm@gmail.com http://www.carneycvm.blogspot.com

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R.A.I.N.  Revive, Affirm, Intercede, Nourish January 2013 Resolution Keeping A new year, a new semester, new everything in the works!  Same God though!  How are you doing on your New Year’s resolutions, now that we are a week or so in? A teacher friend was just talking about her excitement every new semester because you truly get a fresh start—new students, new course material, new schedule.  That is such an exciting thing to have multiple times a year compared to other jobs that seem to drag on the same way for days to years. Guess what, though?!  God makes us new and refreshes us every day to try new and exciting things for His sake.  Lamentations 3:22-23 reminds us, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  We don’t have to be professors to enjoy that fresh start! Whether our job changes or stays the same, our attitude toward it and who we are serving through it can be refreshed every day. With this, I challenge you to add another resolution!  To accept God’s mercy every morning and proclaim it boldly to others. We are getting more and more excited about our theoretical “change” in job description.  Is our job really changing though?  All of God’s children are called to “go and make disciples” wherever we are, so only our location is changing.  Yes, our daily lives will be different, but our calling remains. See these happy smiles? These are some of the girls at a girls’ home (orphanage) in Santa Cruz with their chickens.  This will be one of the small differences in our lives—this project was begun by my predecessor and involves veterinary students in the care of chickens.  This enables these kids to have extra protein and learn how to raise their own chickens so they can eat now and in the future. We are so looking forward to getting there ASAP, especially since Lauren Spears, another CVM vet, has returned to the US to serve in a different role with CVM.  There is a huge gap to fill where she was at the university and in communities, so we really feel the pressure to be there serving.  Just a few dozen more people committed to monthly financial support and we can look at one-way tickets!  Will you help us? Bathed in His new mercies,   Kim & David Carney kimcarneydvm@gmail.com http://www.carneycvm.blogspot.com

Check Out Our Website Check Out Our Blog Donate Now

R.A.I.N.  Revive, Affirm, Intercede, Nourish January 2013 Resolution Keeping A new year, a new semester, new everything in the works!  Same God though!  How are you doing on your New Year’s resolutions, now that we are a week or so in? A teacher friend was just talking about her excitement every new semester because you truly get a fresh start—new students, new course material, new schedule.  That is such an exciting thing to have multiple times a year compared to other jobs that seem to drag on the same way for days to years. Guess what, though?!  God makes us new and refreshes us every day to try new and exciting things for His sake.  Lamentations 3:22-23 reminds us, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  We don’t have to be professors to enjoy that fresh start! Whether our job changes or stays the same, our attitude toward it and who we are serving through it can be refreshed every day. With this, I challenge you to add another resolution!  To accept God’s mercy every morning and proclaim it boldly to others. We are getting more and more excited about our theoretical “change” in job description.  Is our job really changing though?  All of God’s children are called to “go and make disciples” wherever we are, so only our location is changing.  Yes, our daily lives will be different, but our calling remains. See these happy smiles? These are some of the girls at a girls’ home (orphanage) in Santa Cruz with their chickens.  This will be one of the small differences in our lives—this project was begun by my predecessor and involves veterinary students in the care of chickens.  This enables these kids to have extra protein and learn how to raise their own chickens so they can eat now and in the future. We are so looking forward to getting there ASAP, especially since Lauren Spears, another CVM vet, has returned to the US to serve in a different role with CVM.  There is a huge gap to fill where she was at the university and in communities, so we really feel the pressure to be there serving.  Just a few dozen more people committed to monthly financial support and we can look at one-way tickets!  Will you help us? Bathed in His new mercies,   Kim & David Carney kimcarneydvm@gmail.com http://www.carneycvm.blogspot.com

January Prayer Letter

STEERing financial support with cows!

I promised some folks more information on STEER.  This is a great organization that helps fund missionaries through livestock.
http://www.steerinc.com/
Steer will buy a cow, doe, ewe, etc for you to keep in your herd.  They pay for the animal, the vet bills, and you provide labor and feed.  When she calves/kids/lambs and the offspring is sold, the sales price goes to STEER (so you declare no income for taxes) and 85% goes to our ministry!
So, anyone out there who raises livestock (it also works on shares of milk or wheat) and would like to help us in this way, contact me for more info!  It is a 3 year commitment through Steer.

A Four-fold Blessing

As we begin a new year, here is our blessing for you, our friends and co-laborers.

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator,
Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word who is our brother and Saviour,
and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide,
be with you and remain with you, this day and forevermore.

AMEN

God--Ultimate Puzzle Doctor

Puzzled? The body of Christ is an amazing collection of unique characters--it is a bit puzzling!   Each piece is fitted together with care to make a glorious scene.  What happens if one is missing or turned backwards?
 Like a puzzle, we each have our own role to play in sharing the picture of God's story. We aren't all sky or eyes or grass or whatever--each piece is unique.  Even better, though is that we start our as blank cardboard of a shape and God creates a masterpiece as we allow Him to paint our lives in His masterpiece and be placed where He can best use us.
If we resist or ruin the piece that we are, God's purpose can still be fulfilled.  He can work in a few ways when that happens--repaint us and use us in the same place, or if we aren't willing to fulfill His purpose at that time, a new piece can fill the space we left.
 I recently ran across a puzzle piece replacement service on the web (puzzle doctor).  You send them the pieces around the missing one and they recreate the shape of the piece and custom paint the remainder to match the puzzle.  This is a metaphor of the second way God can work around our disobedience.  God's will shall be accomplished, but it takes a bit longer having to rework another piece to fit where one already was.  How much better if we, the bruised and disobedient piece allow ourselves to be found, cleaned and returned to the place God created for us?
Shine your part of the picture brightly and with joy that you are right where God wants you.  If you aren't, allow Him to clean you and restore you to His great plan!

Photo Card

Picture Joy Christmas

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Our December Update Letter--click to see in HTML

Hurried Humbug!

Christmas songs lilted on the air and trees twinkled with lights.  Christmas is here! Oh, wait, it began in October.  I was very tempted to complain about the commercialization of Christmas and the long wind-up to the event, and about how we miss so many important moments of life by starting Christmas essentially as soon as summer ends. Convicted.

How long did God prepare mankind for Christ’s birth?  Since the beginning of creation we have been told about God’s plan of redemption—look at all the prophecies!  I guess complaining about Christmas coming too early is not really fair.  God desires that we live every day in expectation of His coming!  The caution is to ensure we are enjoying the moments of today while we look forward with eager anticipation.

It feels like our family has spent an eternity planning and preparing for life.  We have been nearly a whole year in this deputation process.  Some days it feels like forever with our move nowhere in sight, while others feel like the year has flown by.  As we have been able to see more extended family over the holidays it seems to come in a rush.  We are marking all of the “lasts” for a while and really striving to live each moment here fully, not always planning and wishing and thinking about arriving in Bolivia.

Our much anticipated arrival is soon we hope, but it doesn’t end there!  We continue to look to Jesus’ example in this aspect as well.  The story of Christ doesn’t end with His arrival and ours won’t end there either.  Jesus spent time learning the language and culture of Israel well before beginning His official “ministry.”  That is what we plan to do as well—language and culture acquisition are critical to our effectiveness.  Wise men from far away lands came to visit Jesus during this time, so hint, hint, you can come visit us too. (You don’t have to bring frankincense, but some baking soda would be appreciated!)

Enjoy the preparations as much as the event! The decorations and arrangements don’t have to be perfect (Jesus wasn’t a planned c-section at the best hospital in town), so enjoy time with people celebrating relationships more than perfect decorations and meals.

Pray with us that this Christmas will bring opportunity for all of us to share the joy of Christ with others.

We are progressing steadily in our budget raising process—please pray for our patience in these preparations.  We want each meeting with people to bless them as well as us and the Bolivians.  Pray about partnering with us on a regular basis.  Pray too for our family as we begin our goodbyes over the next few months.

We wish you a joyous Christmas!

Caleb and friends enjoying a chilly hike

Kim & David Carney
kimcarneydvm@gmail.com
http://www.carneycvm.blogspot.com