AUB

Our hotel overlooked the beautiful AUB campus. We took a few afternoons and evenings and walked through their campus. We told the kids before we left that we would walk on the campus in Lebanon like we do in Norman. They have made some major improvements since the last time we were here! The soccer field is amazing! Our kids LOVED getting to run free, play soccer, and jump on the pole vaulting mats. During the day we made the mistake of running on the field bare footed...oh my! It was hot!

These are the steps down to the field...notice everyone walking:-) On our way back up Brian and I were carrying kids and taking breaks for Port and us. We just left our stroller at the top, Haynes was quite concerned it wouldn't be there when we got back.

This picture turned out much better than we thought! Brian and I took a picture here the first time we came to Lebanon. I thought it would be so fun to take a picture with our family, and then do it again when we come again! We had a student take our picture and I think I said, "Just take it...it doesn't matter who's looking"

Sweet Port...

I feel like Port grew up a ton while we were in Lebanon. He is truly a bold leader for God's kingdom. It was so fun watching him fall in love with Drew, Justin, Will, Mary, Valerie, and so many others. Then to watch him push adults/students to pray for people, give to the poor, pray for them, worship and dance, and so much more! I heard him talking to someone when we got back and he said, "We LOVE Lebanon!" We said this to everyone we would meet, but it was so fun hearing it from him.

They had amazing trees inside AUB. Port and Haynes asked everyday if we could go climb the trees. It's amazing to watch them climb as high as we will let them, with absolutely no fear at all! I love raising little boys!

Our cute little princes loved AUB too...but she loved the cats! (gross...) The cats in Lebanon are so dirty and carry disease, but the people inside AUB seemed to love them. We were constantly telling the kids not to touch them, Brian squirting water at them to get them away, but then they would watch the students pet them. Port yelled "Gross...don't touch them!" Oh my! Ella had to be carried around finally because she just wanted to talk to the cats. At one point she blew the cats kisses and said, "I love you!"

Day Outreaches

This is another mall that we went to during the day. It had an amusement park in it! There were tea cups, airplane rides, obstacle course, etc. The kids loved it! I loved that I got to ride the tea cups with my kids, it was AWESOME! Cathleen, Melanie, and I went looking for treasure and decided that store clerks alone in their store were perfect candidates! (Can't ask for a more captive audience) We had a little bit of luck with that, but had a great time trying! I love those girls!

We came to this park a lot too. During our second week we decided that Port should get some time with some of the All-Stars on our team. He got to spend the afternoon with Drew, Will, and Evan. They were able to pray for a lot of different men and saw some of them healed. When you ask Port what his favorite thing he did in Lebanon was, this event is it...so fun I got a picture! Ryan and I were walking and praying over the park. She felt like we were suppose to pour water in the dry fountain as a prophetic act...I LOVE IT! We did and immediately there was a breeze that came through the park and we both had words of knowledge for a woman that resonated...she didn't let us pray. We LOVED this park!

This is a picture coming home from the women's beach one day. We headed out for the beach with a big crew, but kids usually had to leave before everyone else. So we crammed in a cab (usually just me and the kids), I passed out as many treats as I could find, and we rode for about 30 minutes in a cab back to our hotel. We knew before we came on the trip that God had clearly told us to take Ella with us. This precious little girl would bring women and children by the groups to encounter us. I can't even begin to explain the way God used her. Mary and I laughed because at one point I had to go check on the boys and a woman came running up to the pool and yelled, "Darling!!! You can't leave! I've just come to meet you!"

The malls were air-conditioned so we took a few day trip to some different malls. Their malls had amazing kid areas! The kids absolutely loved playing here, completely won the heart of the guy overseeing the playground, and Brian and I had some great encounters while trading off watching the kids.

The man knew all the kids by name, but by the end he was calling them SuperMan and SharkBoy:-) If you know my kids they love to pretend....I think they even gave him a name!

To play in the area you had to have socks on...You will be shocked to know that the boys were actually wearing socks that day, but I had to run out and buy Ella some socks. We had a group of girls and guys come with us to the malls too! They usually got to be apart of our cab ride melt down with Ella...WOW!

This is a picture of the kids outside the women's beach. You can't take pictures inside the women's beach...so we just took one while we were waiting for the cab. Port was a draw for all the 7-12 year old girls. I just took Port to the beach one day and he wanted to swim in the deep pool. When he jumped in about 10 girls came running to help him swim. He didn't really enjoy them trying to hold him in the water, but quickly created a game of jumping in the pool together. I got to share Jesus with them and they asked if I was Port's sister!?!? Another group of girls asked if I was 12 or 15 when we were at the beach...usually being told you look younger is really fun. I'm not so sure about 15?!?

Downtown Beirut

If we didn't go to the Cornishe we went downtown to do outreach. We brought bubbles for the kids to play with and give away to the kids they met. The fun thing was that there were vendors selling bubble guns, so our bubbles were perfect for drawing kids to us! Most kids didn't speak english but the kids got to give them a treat and try to say "Jesus loves you" in arabic. Mostly we wanted kids to feel loved by playing with us:-)

Downtown Beirut is heavily guarded by the military. My boys were completely obsessed with the army guys and their guns. After they had circled one man for about 5 minutes Brian started a conversation with the man. Brian was explaining to the boys that the soldier loves his country and his job is to protect Lebanon. Then Brian told the man that the boys liked to play with guns at home....that didn't translate too well! Ha! I can only imagine what that man thought of our parenting skills:-)

The walk downtown was significantly longer than the walk to the Cornishe. The first night we headed down there Ella fell asleep in her stroller...just a small picture of how tired of little ones were. Haynes was such a great trooper! He walked everywhere we went the first week, but around the second week his little legs couldn't quite handle all the walking.

This is an area by downtown that you can see some ancient ruins. I was explaining to the boy what the ruins were and I told them that Ryan could probably give them a better explanation than I could. Port took off to find Ryan, I just love his hunger to learn! Brian had a really sweet interaction with a guy who had lost his father and was super touched by their prayers. This is also where Port found the man in shorts that the Lord had lead him to! Even though the man never let us pray for him (after being approached 3 times) we were super excited to see God's pursuit for this man.

Corneishe Outreach

Every night we would grab dinner and then all meet up about 7:30p.m. to walk to the Corneishe together. The first night we had dinner with the Caldwell's and Tyler, waited on the Lord, and then went to find our "treasure." Port and Haynes were my little bold warriors. Port left our room and yelled, "Let's go pray for people!" Immediately convinced Tyler they needed to pray for the men working the restaurant at the bottom of our hotel. The fun thing about that story is that the man was super touched. Later in the week some of our guys ran into him in his neighborhood and he was still talking about Port praying for him.

The Corneishe is a walkway that goes along the ocean. We rotated between here and downtown every night. Haynes had a really sweet encounter here too! It was so fun seeing the words God had spoken over us come to life. Haynes just declaring Jesus name broke down walls in a man that Drew and Brian couldn't. Ella was a little magnet for children, teenage boys, and anyone else that walked by! We had some really sweet encounters with some mommies because of Ella. Brian and Jason encountered a guy one night and every night we came back he was waiting on us!

These are so of the stairs that we had to take to get to the Corneishe. Every now and then the strollers would take a different route, but this is just a small example of the roads we traveled. By the end of our trip I said that I should win the award for urban stroller terrain! I didn't work out while we were gone, but I'm pretty sure my arms were worked quite well:-)

The is a tree that was outside the gates to AUB. The first time we passed it my kids were SO excited to climb it. One of our favorite things to do is take the kids walking on campus. We have a great climbing tree at OU that we always go to, so the boys were so excited to find their new climbing tree in Lebanon.

This is Bliss Street which runs right in front of our hotel. Drew asked Port what was different from America and Lebanon. Port's response was, "They sure do honk a lot!" At night when we would put the kids to bed Port would always ask, "Why are they still honking...I can't sleep!" Eventually we wore them out enough that the honking didn't matter:-) As you can see our kids will climb anything! We would wait for everyone here, so if there was ever any down time the boys would see how fast they could climb the pole.

Our new home for a few weeks!

We stayed at the University Hotel. We shared the top floor of the hotel with Justin and Cathleen. This is the main room that the boys and Ella slept in, we had team dinners, and meetings. Those pretty windows gave the best view of the ocean! They also let all that beautiful sunlight in starting at 5:00 am...

This is Brian and my room and bathroom. The kids loved joining us in our bed early in the morning. The Lebeau's lived across the hall and we LOVED it! They learned to differentiate between our kids cries...pretty thin walls:-)

This is Ella meeting Mary and Claire for the first time. Ella's affection only grew for these two ladies as the weeks went on. I look forward to these girls growing up and being buddies!

Our first dinner in Lebanon! We had dinner with the Whites and LeBeau's. We were completely exhausted...can you tell from Brian's eyes! We loved getting time with the White's. They are absolutely amazing!

Heading to Beirut!

After a lot of thought and planning we decided to bring Ella's car seat on the plane with us. Since we had so many extra hands we thought they could help us carry that big thing around the airports. We decided the hassle was worth keeping her contained on a 3 hour ride, 9 hour ride, and a 4 hour ride. We quickly learned that we chose wisely! She loved her car seat!

On our long flight from Minneapolis to Paris 6 people from our team got bumped into 1st class! We were 3 of the lucky ones! The boys had a great time and it was perfect when it came time to rest...they pretty much had their own beds. Brian and I switched places about half way through the flight...he ended up with the better end of the deal. Ella had a "blow out diaper" that she alerted me with by saying "uh oh mommy!" We then proceeded to wake up most of our half of the plane and first class since that's where the diapers were:-)

The boys got to make their own ice cream sundaes! I was moving back and forth between our seats so much that the man next to us said, "I need to travel with one of you!" My boys are pretty independent but still need help getting snacks, games, movies, etc.

We made it! We finally made it to Lebanon and so did ALL of our bags. Our last flight was great because everyone slept for most of it! When we got to Lebanon it was afternoon so we had to stay awake for the rest of the day to make jet lag a little better. I some how managed to not give out any suckers until we actually made it to Lebanon...amazing huh?!?

The minute we walked through those doors at the airport my kids turned into little celebrities! They were hugged, pinched, hair messed with, kissed, and any other form of affection you can imagine. It was absolutely amazing to see the joy these kids brought to people! Haynes somehow got under our bus driver while he was loading luggage to the top of the car. The man stepped on Haynes and was absolutely horrified! We affirmed him that Haynes was fine (it was actually his fault) but the man couldn't stop loving on him.

Just a few more days

We only have a few days left...our time here has flown by! Today we have two sick little ones, Haynes has a stomach virus and Ella has an ear infection. Cathleen got Ella some antibiotic today and we are thankful to have something to blame a few crazy fits on:-) Haynes has a pretty high temperature, acts okay, but will complain about his stomach a lot:-( We are believing for complete restoration for our little family!

This morning I took Port on a breakfast date to Starbucks and then to our morning prayer meeting. Our prayer meeting was so fun today because we are so excited for all the amazing things God has already done here in Beirut but we are believing for even more over these next few days. We spent some time just celebrating and thanking God for all the amazing things He has done...Port LOVED it!

This afternoon we took the kids to play soccer on AUB's campus just to get some energy out of them. Port had a great time until we got kicked off the field, Haynes tried to play as much as he could until his tummy hurt too much. (that's a sign he doesn't feel great when he won't play soccer) We are taking some early naps because we are having a team dinner downtown tonight! Brian went to visit the neighborhoods around here during our naptime...can't wait to hear his stories.

Here are a few stories to report from the group that went to the Corneish...One group was praying for a little girl that was deaf. So many people started to gather that they had a crowd of people wanting them to preach after they finished praying...still believing for her ears to be open! Another group were ministering to some women. The women were so excited that they went and got the husband. He was so touched that he said he wanted them to come start reading the bible with his whole family (it was amazing that women were ministering to him and that the head of the household was being transformed!). Some girls went to a woman's home to follow up. They prayed for her to be healed and the woman told Melanie that she didn't need to translate the prayer she felt God heal her! We have made over 50 contacts for our long-term team to follow up with as they move to Lebanon.