Our God is AMAZING!

This morning is our last full day in Nicaragua.  It is a day of rest and regrouping.  I am sitting and watching the Pacific break on the rocks, waiting for the few surfers to paddle out and tackle the waves.  It is a tough life...
We have had a great week of training though.  We, along with 10 other CVM fieldworkers or candidates have been working 8am to often 7 or 8 pm daily on a training called "Training of Trainers."  This is an exciting, practical method of adult education based on Participatory Learning.  The gist of this is involving trainees (on our staff, in communities, or anywhere) to engage in dialogue through skits, picture codes, etc to discover their own needs and have ownership of the material they learn. A simile for this is like how David and I joke that our marriage is happy because we always let the other person think it was their idea!  It isn't so devious as that, though.  It is an amazing method of teaching and learning rather than our traditional school method of banking--dumping knowledge into a brain and expecting regurgitation of answers.
Anyway, it has been an intense week of learning and application, we even had to develop our own training programs to present to our classmates.  The bonding between our coworkers was amazing.  I am constantly reminded of what an excellent example of the family of Christ that we have in Christian Veterinary Mission. 
We have now been at the beach for a day or so with the other fieldworkers from Latin America and have loved picking their brains about crosscultural living and the odd things we should plan to bring with us!  More about that in the future...

Thanks for supporting us with your prayers!  We are flying home on Tuesday and then Caleb is going to Indiana to visit family, David is back to school, and I am headed to California for the CVM board meeting.  Pray for our crazy travel and sanity!

Leaving Saturday

It has been a fun, busy week for us!  Last weekend we spent an awesome time in Athens for the CVM Real Life Real Impact student meeting.  It was great to see our DVM friends and meet new vet students who love the Lord. We shared about RAIN and had a wonderful outpouring of love and prayer from the folks in our session. 
Tonight I get to share with the Bell County 4H about equine parasites, then finish packing for Nicaragua.  We leave at 3:30AM Saturday to head to Nicaragua for a week and a half of training in participatory learning for community development and fellowship with other CVM fieldworkers.  Pray for our travels and our deeper understanding of this form of ministry.

White as snow

As I look at the thin layer of snow this morning, I will continue on the theme of cleansing, of sanctification.  Cue the "Washed in the Blood" chorus (are your garments spotless, are they white as snow), so it can be stuck in your head too!
The sacrifice of Jesus justifies us, that is, makes us accepatble to the Lord (remember your elementary Christian education-"just as if I'd").  Our sanctification however is another matter altogether.  That is our process of working toward holiness.  This is where the snow comes in.  Today we have a very thin layer, but all the grass is poking through, there are windswept patches on the driveway that are bare; all in all it is pretty ugly.  But if it continues to snow it will blanket everything to there are no rough edges, no poky things and it will be beautiful.  In the same manner, as we learn to let go of the things of this world and strive toward God's will, we become clothed in righteousness and just as smooth and pure as the snow-covered landscape looks.  Here is where my analogy may break down (or not).  God changes us and truly makes us holy and righteous, whereas the snow just covers us up, when it melts, the unmown grass and weedy pastures are staring. Maybe it is true of us too though.  Without God, we are still human, so if we drift away our weeds become exposed too.
Enjoy the snow and think of how we are working toward holiness, not covering up our inadequacies ourselves, but allowing God to blanket us in His purity.

My cup overflows Psalm 23:5 (or runneth over, if you like KJV)
This is what I shrieked this morning as I tried to do laundry in the dark.  Pouring clear laundry detergent is not that successful in a predawn haze.  Why didn't I turn on the light?  Well, honestly I got lazy--I had flipped the breaker to rewire the ceiling fan and never gotten around to it and didn't want to run down to the basement to turn the breaker back on.
Why am I bothering to tell you this?  I was struck by the symbolism of this tiny accident.  The Lord's cup overflows with salvation, with cleansing, with goodness. My clothes may be extra sudsy today and maybe cleaner, but the Lord's cup of blessing through the blood of Jesus makes us pure and spotless, able to enter into the Lord's presence.  It is an amazing thing to be clean enough for God!  Read some Levitical laws about cleanliness (Chapter 13 is a good one).  Wow!  Maybe my grandma was right that "cleanliness is next to Godliness," but praise God for Jesus! If we had to present ourselves to the priest for every scab we had, or every spot of mold on a piece of leather to determine if we were able to worship. 
So, wash your clothes and wear them to worship our great God.  Take refuge in His glorious sanctification and freedom.

The Contagion of Christ

One of our friends shared with me an incredible Christmas gift!  Since then I have passed it along to my sister in law, David, and who knows how many others! What was this great gift? A cold, of course.
As I see people infected, I wonder how infective is our Christianity? Is our joy as profuse as our germs?
Is hand sanitizer the equivalent of indifference or the devil stopping our enthusiastic spread?

During this time of cold and flu season we are acutely aware of our actions.  We wash our hands until they are chapped, use gallons of hand sanitizer and cover our coughs.  Are we this conscientious about our faith? I challenge you (and me) to spread the joy of the Lord with abandon. We should be like the leper in Mark 1:45 who "went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news"!  Let our joy and peace be as evident as our red, runny noses and our proclamations of His sovereignty as fervent as our coughing!

Oh, and if you find yourself with physical sickness, remember that Jesus gave his disciples "authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every sickness" Matthew 10:1 You will get better eventually, in the meantime let your sickness remind you of how to spread the gospel!

Advent!

'Tis the season of Advent!  For you Latin nerds: ad=to; vent=come.  So, the season "to come."  A season of preparation.  You all think I am talking about Christmas?  Well, yes, that and our preparations for all our future amazement.  You may hear this again soon, but it is such a perfect analogy.
How are you preparing to celebrate the Lord's great gift to us?  I'd love to hear some of your traditions of advent.  Caleb and I are working on some Latin prayers and reading different prophesies and accounts of Jesus' birth in school.  We've not had the myth of the bearded guy in many years since Caleb's Papa Carney is a ringer, so it is easy for us to focus on the deeper meaning of Christmas.

Caleb and Papa Carney 3 years ago!

Our Bible study tonight focused on Joy.  We shared storied of all the stereotypical events that bring us joy, but realized how we overlook the joy in everyday life.  Remembering that joy is not always the same as happiness, I challenge you to seek to remember joy can be found in every circumstance.

How is our advent? We just submitted our first prayer letter to be sent out the first week or two of January.  We've been gathering and validating addresses and other contact info so someone actually gets these letters!
David is nearly finished with this semester, so that is quite a relief.  Hopefully he will be finished this Spring--pray with us that some of his life experience credits will be applied ASAP so he can drop some of his classes for the spring!
Our house is getting a bit empty as we sell and pack away our things, but no-one has looked at it lately.  We listed 2 weeks ago with Heartland Realty, so hopefully we'll have some interest soon. 

I hope you all have a joyous celebration of the birth of Christ, our Immanuel!

Photo Card

Checkers Sky Basic Borders

Cheerful Christmas invitations for your friends and family.

View the entire collection of cards.

Thanksgiving!

It is so easy to get bogged down in all the little details of life and lose the big picture.  We are having a big picture day I think, I hope, I pray...
Today we are sitting in our snug, cozy house while it drizzles rain.  David's parents are here for the weekend and we are thankful to have them here.  David is packing up some of our sentimental trinkets from travels past to send home with them for storage.  Actually, it gets a little sad seeing our precious things go away--selling a lot and deciding what we think we can't part with.  Rifles going into storage signal the postponement of dreamed-for hunts, books being sold by the trunkload end the ideas of a future house-build, and putting away our centuries old piece of torah scroll lends certainty to our plans.
We are remembering friends and trips past and being so thankful for the blessings we have had.
We have been exceedingly blessed by relationships such as yours!  Spending a quiet weekend with family is a capstone on this busy week.
We are looking forward to spending next week with my family in Indiana.  For us to do this I must remember to thank Dr. Erica Oller and my staff for covering for me while I am gone.  I can't think of when my whole family has been together in years!!
Deo gratias!!  yes, my household is remembering our Latin nerdiness (ok, maybe just me and I am indoctrinating Caleb).  Thanks be to God!  What are you thankful for this season?
I am thankful that
             We are a redeemed people with a loving God of grace!
             The Lord has commissioned us all to share this grace and love to the ends of the world
             We are all family--sons and daughters of the living God
So, Happy Thanksgiving to our family! 
Are you up for a challenge?   Our pastor challenged us to a fast today until the end of the year (yes, while we were smelling the feast of a covered-dish we had planned).  Thankfully, it wasn't a food fast!  The challenge was to fast from complaining.  Wow!  Wonder how many of us made it home with the challenge intact?
Continue to pray for the sale of our house and progress of our plans.  If anyone wants more information about anything we are doing, contact me--how to give, how to pray specifically, how we can pray for you.
Deo gratias!  (maybe we can have Spanish for you soon...)

Gearing up

Ok, I think it is finally time to start working on this blog!  First-some background on us and our calling.  David and I have now been married 9 years and are finally moving on our pre-marital desires.  That maybe didn't sound like I meant...We both independently felt a stirring in our lives to serve as full-time missionaries elsewhere prior to dating.  Hopefully we were waiting on God's timing these last 9 years, but this spring came a strong sense of unrest in our very placid and wonderfully happy lives.  Uh-oh, right?  God was moving.  It is finally time to get moving on moving!
We have been involved in various aspects of Christian Veterinary Mission (www.cvmusa.org) for 15 years, so naturally we want this family of believers to be our primary sending organization.  Ok, then, step one--partner organization: check.
If you know us, you know we have a severe travel bug, so where should we decide to settle?  We love Asian food, African animals and Latin culture (and of course all things Irish); so this has taken the most discernment for us.  At present we feel rather strongly called to Bolivia, in South America.  We have peace about this decision even in the face of some minor setbacks (more to follow, time permitting).  Great! Step 2: location: check
What will we be doing?  Hmm, that is a bit tougher.  God has gifted us both with a very diverse set of skills and things we really enjoy doing, but teaching is always first.  The hard part is figuring out if that is formal institutional teaching or backpacking 3 days to a tribe in the mountains.  Both have great promise for "rain"ing on the body of Christ in Bolivia.  If it is the latter, you won't have to endure this blog very frequently ;) So step 3: sorta check?
We are now on to steps 4-144,000.  I don't know what some of them are, but here's what you can be praying with us about for our immediate needs

• sell the house
• sell our junk-I mean earthly treasures
• compile contact info for friends and supporters who want to build/maintain relationship with us
• begin deputation process (that's the missiological word for raising support/money for project and living expenses)

There are many details to work on and much excitement about getting there and getting started.  We are claiming the Lord's faithfulness in getting us ready quickly!  Watch for more blogging with more of the personal stuff as we get through the formalities of who and what we are about.  Contact us if you have other questions or comments, ideas, encouragement and very importantly what is going on in your lives and how we can partner with you in prayer.  Love to hear from you!
Kim

22 acres and 2 homes

View from front porch

Just 6 miles from campus is a secluded 22m/l acre farm on Dogwood Heights Road.  The main house, built in 1996 has 1,723 sq ft finished with a 187sf sunroom and a full unfinished basement.  The house sits atop a small rise with an amazing view of the Gap.  





Cathedral ceilings crown a large living room that is open to the kitchen. 

Bamboo hardwood installed throughout most rooms 3 years ago, sunroom and bathroom tiled in last 2-3 years as well.  All walls and celings painted within last 4 years.

Master bed or 2nd living

Master bed or 2nd living room

The main house has 3 or 4 bedrooms and 2 baths.  One bedroom has a stone fireplace and French doors with a view of the Cumberland Gap.

The kitchen includes a large island with eating area, Kenmore French door refrigerator with bottom freezer (in upgraded “black pearl” finish), a jenn-air ceramic top range and convection oven, and quartz counters.

Kitchen

Bedroom

Bathroom

Sunroom

There are 12 acres fenced with electrobraid (horse-safe) fence, 2-4 more acres of cleared land ready to fence and the balance in woods.  There is a medium sized pond (spring-fed) with large Koi.  A barn is seated in one pasture with an older side with 2 large stalls and hay loft and a newer sheet metal side for equipment storage.

A second rental house sits below the barn and has a separate driveway from the main house.  It is a nearly 1200sf doublewide gutted and remodeled 4 years ago.  Heat pump is 2 years old.  This house is currently rented for $400 excluding utilities.  It has 3 bedrooms and 2 full baths.

 

Call David or Kim Carney

423.526.9328 or 865.585.2037
List price $300,000

Email carney@harrogatehospital.com