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Back in our archives you will find posts just before we adopted Ella Grace about Frank’s mission trip to Honduras with his youth group. Book of Hope, now called One Hope, was the mission organization that he traveled with. He also made a leaders only trip to Poland with another friend, Ed Gannon, who felt so strongly about One Hope’s mission that he continued to travel and lead trips for them a while after the Poland experience. Ed has actually recently gotten marrried to a woman whom he met on one of those missions.

Frank has long felt called to missions, both domestic and foreign. That has been a frightening thing for me as a wife, a mother and as someone with a career of my own. Would God ask our whole family to pick up and leave family, friends, schools and our home? We prayed, a lot, for years. Frank spent a great deal of time researching options and clearly told me that he would make no decision without my feeling at peace about it as well.

A few months ago one of his contacts from One Hope contacted me about adoption. They are adopting through our agency and she had some questions. The subject soon turned to how Frank felt a call to missions and her telling me how much they needed people to lead short term trips for One Hope. She was thrilled at the idea he may be interested. I was in awe that God could be giving Frank the desires of his heart and satisfying me as well.

Often missionaries are called on to raise their own support. Through the years we have been asked to support many different missions in many different places. Jesus tells us to go and make disciples and take care of people and do this in love. By making disciples others will then know that unconditional grace and love others, too. It is our belief that He equips us at different times for different jobs. Some people will GO and some people can make it possible for those who are called TO go. Raising his own support is a walk outside his comfort zone, but Frank has been working diligently because he knows, as I do, that this is what he is supposed to be doing. There are many of you-our friends-who have committed to support. Thank you sincerely.

Our plan is that Frank will continue to lead a trip a month for the next 2 years while being based at home and completing his masters in family counseling. He will also do PR booths around the southeast at youth conventions. Both of these job responsibilities are well within his comfort zone! He has many youth contacts from his 17 years in the field, has been to countless conventions and has lead many many trips, mission and otherwise, domestic and abroad.

Frank has a degree in Biblical Studies and is extremely firm in what he believes about the Bible. The Truth therein is his passion and to be able to lead groups all over the world and share this while working to meet the basic needs of those people as well is…well…perfect for him.

As I write this he is in on a boat in the Amazon River in Peru co-leading a group from The Church of the Highlands in Birmingham. I have spoken with him several times in the last couple of days while he has been in Iquitos at the hotel but don’t expect to hear from him again til the 29th. They begin the trip down the river from village to village today. He is doing very well and has even eaten a fried banana (it was his second biggest fear in making the trip, he detests them)! He says the group he’s with is a dream.

We thank you very much for your prayers and interest in what is going on with our family. If you Twitter they are @247peru. I will continue to update as I hear anything. For now, know that Frank is safe and feeling good about what he is doing, making a difference in the lives of many people and the rest of the Pass Fam is holding steady!

no one has ever denied that my mother and father have a very unique relationship. they were high school sweethearts, married very young and had me. they divorced when i was five…and it wasn’t like it was all “ok, well this didn’t work so you go your way and i’ll go mine”…no. it wasn’t really a pretty split. but sometime not long after that my mother decided it wasn’t going to work for me to have everyone hating and stuff so she and my then very young step-mother worked it out. then they went past that and became really great friends. mama always said she didn’t want to give up all the wonderful people in my dad’s family, so she just DIDNT. i don’t blame her, they are pretty cool.

fast forward 35 years…MANY more very cool people all having a great day at the farm together. in-laws and out-laws, married and single, very young (the youngest this year was 2 months) and very old (my grandmother is 84). forgiveness and grace is a wonderful thing.

Anne Louise and Katy love to sing. On my side, their great-grandfather was in the 1943 cast of the Grand Ol Opry, their grandmother has a great ear and understanding of musical theory, and their Pa…well you prolly already know about him. When you get my family together aunts and cousins and siblings are all playing and singing and harmonizing. Ella Grace gets her musical ability from her dad, best as we can see so far. ha. Anyway, Anne Louise’s sings in the chorus at school, participates in worship arts at church and loves to be in a play anytime she can. This year they got fancy dresses for chorus at school and she looked so grown up all of a sudden.

since being back home at Frazer, i seem to be getting lots of good chances to be a drama queen. guess they recognize that i can do that easily. ha. anyway, for easter they chose a willow creek piece with the leper (played by Robert Suttle), the rich young ruler (Jason Morgan) and…a-hem…the woman caught in adultry. i’m not gonna lie, it wasn’t the easiest role i’ve ever played. apparently i was convincing, too. one of anne louise’s friends sitting next to her in the audience leaned over and asked her “wow. did that really happen to your mom?” yeah. uh-huh. anne louise and katy both got to be a part of making the whole experience pretty moving.

the next weekend on easter sunday i opened the contemporary service with a monologue taken from the gospel accounts of mary magdelene and the women meeting Jesus after the stone was moved that morning.

i also recently got a chance to do the “Five Before” which are our video announcements played 5 minutes before the service starts each week. that was lots of fun. i usually do live stuff and being in front of the camera was a different experience.

its a cool thing to be at a place where someone needs me to act. never really thought i’d have a chance to do much of that again and its a lot of fun for me. i mean, for real, go God, huh?

Really? Its been 9 years since Katy arrived on the planet and totally rocked our world? Katy is maybe the most sensitive little girl i’ve ever met. her feeling can get hurt so easliy, but at the same time she feels so deeply and cares so much for others.

Katy has a big heart. its the way God made her and its awesome. i don’t think i have ever shared the circumstances surrounding her kissy fingers. now seems like as good time….

the day she was born we had no idea we’d have so much to deal with. at the time it seemed huge. now it seems strange that it seemed so huge. we started noticing little differences as soon as she was born. most notably we saw webbing on a couple of fingers, short crooked fingers on her left hand, cleft tongue, and cleft palate. our wonderful pediatrician warned us that multiple anomolies that we COULD see often meant there were things that we COULDN’T see and they could mean she had a chromosomal abnormality. that could mean BIG stuff. she was tested for everything. ultrasounds, heart tests, blood tests, hearing, eye sight…nothing unusual. she was diagnosed with a random recessive gene thing that usually caused nothing other than what we could see and she had surgery to repair her palate, separate her fingers and remake her tongue when she was 10 months old. it wasn’t fun, but it certainly could have been much worse…even the random things we delt with could have been more serious. they told us that we would have to have another surgery when she got older to straighten her fingers. but since then, her fingers have become so uniquely “katy” that no one, including her, wants to change them. i call them her kissy fingers because three of them come together and are the same length and i can kiss em all at once. i had a print made recently that i can wear around my neck. katy’s kissy fingers are the BEST.

so…now she’s nine years old. and she’s loving and funny and so cute (can i say that even tho everyone says she looks just like me??). katy is perfect just exactly like she is.