Taking a Break

The week got away with me. I decided to head out of the country, Victoria BC Canada, for a few days with a friend and reconnect with Canadian roots. We also have overnight guests and programs to coordinate so I'm taking a break this week. Thanks for checking in.

Detour

Detour from Robin's nest in rose trellis

I made a sign today and placed it in a pot beside the rose trellis over the pathway, “Detour…nest”. Lately, every time we walked from the cottage to the parking area and main house through the rose bud covered archway, a robin flew out scolding and chipping after us. “The detour won’t be for that long,” I said. But according to The Birder’s Handbook, by Ehrilich, Dobkin and Wheye, looks like the a month long sign, 12-14 days before the young hatch and another 12-16 before they fledge. The pink Paul’s Himalayan Musk Rose surrounding the trellis will be in full bloom by then.

I sometimes feel like that bird, always interruptions and indignant because of them, disturbed, distressed, and flying off my task in a huff. Perhaps I need a “Do not disturb” “Detour, danger ahead!” sign on myself so I can get something completed, like this blog.

Upon reflection, I realize that instead I need a “Detour” sign for myself to look at, to change the way I think, go in a different thought direction. I say that I want to be interruptible, to be used by God for His purposes, but when it comes down to it, I forget and get angry. You are my real refuge and quiet place Lord. I want your peace. I know you are sovereign and have my best interests at heart so I give you my anger and frustration and I know you will take it away. I want my life to be a sign post pointing away from me to you. Perhaps I have a month to look at the sign I put up in front of the robin’s nest and remember that whenever I am disturbed to ask for your help to think differently so that others might see a blooming rose, your glory instead of me.


 

Lost and separated

Fledgling alone and abandoned

I’ve always had a heart for birds, to rescue the injured, distressed, or separated, motherless. So when Neil pointed out what he called a “sick bird” outside our door on the stone patio last week, just before Mother’s Day I paid attention, stopped what I was doing and asked God what to do. It was all fluffed up feathers, trapping warm air for better insulation, wobbly legs and head resting under its wing, tired and cold. Many say that you should just leave it alone unless it is injured in that case get it to a Wildlife rehab center. This fledgling was not injured but was distressed and alone. I thought about placing it up higher in a tree or bush, but wasn’t sure where its nest was, nor what kind of bird it was as most baby birds look somewhat alike when young, and its legs did not look stable enough to do this, so I left it alone to fend for itself. I decided that I would put it in a box overnight for safekeeping if throughout the day I didn’t see its mother and it still looked abandoned. Just before nightfall, I looked out to find it under a large saucer, cold and abandoned and dead.
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How could I let it die? What should I have done? I was distressed and distraught now; extremely sad, I sobbed for its loss. Wondering why I had such a heartbreaking reaction, God then showed me that I had been praying daily for over a month a quote from “Seeker Small Groups,” by Gary Poole. “Lord help me see the lost as you do, to have a broken heart for them and great compassion. Help me think about their spiritual condition. Help them really matter to me. Lord, give me a renewed passion for lost people. Give me new eyes to see them as they really are - lost, separated, distressed.” We learned about these groups in February at a confernce and had been praying about starting one, when and how. To help us even more understand the important timing to sart a group soon, God brought a family with 10 month old adopted Ethiopian orphan twins to join us for Mother’s Day. What a delight to watch these happy African babies that had joined their family of four, knowing they were rescued from death and no longer motherless.

The message seemed clear, the timing was here to reach out to adults around us who are separated from God, distressed or alone. We stared our first group last week. With fear and trembling and God’s direction, we openly discuss spiritual issues in a safe place where they can self discover where they might be hindered spiritually, participate in out of the box discussions and learn how to be no longer alone. Pray with us, even more important than birds these human lives, that they might be found, rescued and no longer alone and many more would flock to our door.

see http://www.youtube.com/ angelambryant Lost fledgling

( If you are interested find out more about sponsoring an orphan from Africa as we have, not adopting, check out Rafiki Foundation, http://www.rafiki-foundation.org/ )

Repair

Stair needing repair on ladder to my loft

A month ago I started praying for help. There’s a lot around here that needs repair. The cottage faucets increasingly drip and can’t be stopped. The step to the loft is broken and hanging, the laundry room cabinets are sitting in the garage waiting to be hung, holes in the garden where electrical wiring needs fixing, the two year old LG refrigerator drawers and shelves lying outside broken. The list goes on and on. Then God started sending first help with housework, then extra help with the garden. Now someone came and hung the cabinets in the laundry room. Tomoko helped me to figure out how to call and get new parts for the refrigerator, I found a website selling old faucet stems and Neil replaced them and cleaned out the nest boxes just in time for the arrival of the former residents.

While I was inside cleaning up and organizing the new cabinets the laundry room, Neil and friend Cherie, working in the garden, amazingly saw five eagles soaring right over them in formation. They told me later and I wished I was outside to see them. But a few days later at a women’s conference I experienced eagles in another way. We sang a theme song, “Like an Eagle my wings will be repaired and life renewed”. Yes, even more needs to be repaired and rebuilt within me than around me. The disrepair around me is just a mirror of my broken inside. Lately, I’m seeing God restoring me within and hopefully setting me free to soar like the eagles I didn’t’ see. Revival is coming and God says it’s with me first. My dripping words of discontent can now be shut off and controlled; I pray. Maybe now I will give more encouragement and compliments. The writing loft ladder step is not repaired but you Lord can show me the next step and where to place my feet on a solid footing every day. It is a reminder as I climb the ladder to write. Lord, thank you for answering my call for help.

Psalm 138:1-8

Back to the nest

Old tree swallow nest removed from nestbox

We had a great weekend with Chris, Tomoko and Dylan visiting. I taught Dylan to roll down the grassy hill (Neil had freshly cut the grass, composting the clippings) and we, Dylan, Tomoko and grandma had a fun, dizzy afternoon. They also helped me clean out one of the nest boxes, just in time for the rest of our summer residing migratory birds to arrive and begin to claim them. The tree swallows are still deciding on two favorites, the house wrens taking up three and the barn swallows spending just the nights in the old nests.
We are also getting a new boat. Perhaps that is the "nestbox" that will keep our family coming back here often as well.
Too busy with garden and house maintenance, a weekend conference away, and social activities to do justice to a blog this week. Will post some videos in the next few days.

see www.youtube.com angelambryant Tree Swallows are back and House Wrens are back

travelling north

Flyway

Sadly leaving behind our granddaughter and her parents we travelled Thursday and Friday from sunny California to snowy Seattle! We knew Maggie's parents were doing well and that they could ask her real Creator for her operating instructions. *

We took it slow. In that inbetween zone of leaving and return we watched the haymaking on the center strips of the highway, bales carted away on double flatbed trucks secured by metal straps. In Oregon we noticed truck after truck of huge cedar logs. We loved the old farms and barns along the highway, and green fields of cattle in California and sheep in Oregon.

We stopped and felt most at home at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, the only car there, pausing every few minutes along the automobile route to view wildlife. Most of the birds had headed north before us, returning to their nesting sites as far away as Alaska. We, however, enjoyed the natives in their natural habitat and some newly arrived shorebirds. Wildlife, not having reason and will, but a guidance system and operating instructions built in, migrate the Pacific Flyway north and south according to the seasons since the beginning of time. We, with our will yielded to God's direction were instructed to have dominion and care for these creatures of the earth. I am thankful for refuges that help us experience that care and this rare peek at God's avian creation.

Because 90% of California's wetlands have disappeared, these wetlands are mostly manmade. Established in 1937 more than 35,000 acres of wetlands and uplands are managed by draining and reflooding, burning, mowing and irrigating grasslands and creating ponds, a replication of natural habitat. We drove at the edge of seasonal marshes, watching waders and by permanent ponds the waterfowl finding abundant wildlife in a fun few hours. The brochure states, "... appoximately 44% of the Pacific Flyway's waterfowl population winters in the Sacramento Valley. Three million ducks and over one million geese migrate here." We will try to come back at the peak in November, but then again, I don't think we can wait that long for another trip further south to visit our new granddaughter and family. If it keeps snowing in Seattle, we might just turn right around south again.

* 2 Timothy 3:15-17

See www. youtube.com angelambryant Sacramento National Wildlife Reguge

Lost looking

Marguerite Grace one week old

Holding Maggie I'm lost this week

Looking at her face, hearing her squeek.

A smile, a scrunch, wiggling around

I'm caught in a dream I've found.

Her eyebrow up, mouth turned down

a wrinkled brow shows a frown.

An outstretched arm hits her face,

a simple squeek speaks Maggie Grace.

I'm not the same from a week ago.

My single focus lets all else go

the past, the future melt away.

Only in the present here I stay.

I don't want to miss a single smile,

or change, or first, so I sit awhile.

I get lost in a dream just watching her face,

taking every move in, oh Maggie Grace.