yay.

I slept an entire night last night!

11 - 5:30

Sleepless Nights.

The past week & two nights I've been unable to sleep well. In fact a few of those nights, I slept 2 or 3 hours max. 

I lie awake with a body aching for sleep. I am a verbal processor and maybe two of the nights I understood why I was awake. My mind racing with so many coloured thoughts that one could not sleep.

When I did finally sleep I had very vivid dreams. One vivid nightmare, which was actually the beginning of my sleepless nights. 

Either I wake really drained, and last minute (which I dislike so much). Or I have been awake since early morning and I am dragging.

God's strength is what I'm still leaning on, but I could use your prayers. 

Thank You!

Jami Joann

Salam Aleykum.

Tonight was probably my favourite night of this week, and not just because it's Friday evening. Although the fact that the weekend is here after a busy week is wonderful news!

 Lately it has really been on our hearts to do something outside of the YWAM community & to do something that will help keep our future visions awakened and well. Thankfully, God provided a way for both! It is the best way ever, nothing like we expected!

A man working at our YWAM base here in Arvada was speaking with Ted about how he worked assisting the government with new refugee families from all over the world who are brought to the Denver area to live.  

As many of you know, Ted live in Afghanistan for 6 months, among the people and the culture and has such a heart to head back someday. Ted was thrilled to tell me about this opportunity to help a family, possibly an Afghan family. We immediately called and soon we met with a man who was excited to tell us there was an Afghan family in need of services and lessons on our culture and language! An AFGHAN family!

This evening we met with our "adopted" Afghan family for the first time, and it was so wonderful. We were both so nervous to meet them, especially me because I have heard about the culture but never experienced it! Oh golly, did we experience it tonight!! Hours of conversations & amazing homemade Afghan food!

We immediately "hit it off" with the family. The family is a mother with 6 children; 3 boys, 3 girls. And probably the most stunningly beautiful girls I have ever seen! Their ages range from 10 - 20. We ended up only meeting the 3 daughters & the mother tonight. Although I did briefly catch a young boy peeking his cute little head around the corner!

So, what will we be doing with them?

Honestly, whatever they need. Nothing financially unless God leads but they aren't expecting anything like that. We will be helping them reapply for food stamps, help with anything they need fixed in their home, teaching them how to drive before the drivers test, basic american culture, language, etc. You get the idea. The mother is the only one who barely speaks any english. The children, especially the oldest, speak it well but can improve. 

On the ride home tonight we talked about all of the possibilities for them and "we could take them to do this" and "they should learn this". Needless to say we are so excited for this God given opportunity! 

We will also be doing fun things with them too hopefully. Things like taking them into the mountains, possibly Eagle Rock, or taking them sledding, or taking them downtown to see sites, things they've never done in their year and 1/2 here. 

Please pray for this relationship to deepen & that God will pour out through us! They are Muslim and we both really feel led to be Christ, but we will not bring anything religious up unless they do. We know and trust Christ's pursuit for his children and pray He shines through us! Please pray for us! 

Love much, 

Ted & Jami 

Captured Awe.

The children we basically lived with from Isaan, Thailand (Northeast Thailand, near Cambodian border).

Chopsticks.

(01:: I am so sorry for the delayed blog of almost a month!)

Here is my attempt to fill you in on the latest in the Davis life.

Along with each new season & quarter change comes a change in our lifestyle as well. We've learned quickly to be flexible and now we anticipate this change with open hearts & minds!

02:: t h a i l a n d
As many of you know, we recently returned from our second outreach to Thailand. This past trip was incredibly redemptive as well as challenging. It truly grew Ted and I into the leaders God is calling us to be. Obviously there is always room for growth and I am by no means saying we've got this all together. I believe with each different situation, team or person, new challenges arise causing us to trust God further and either deepen our leadership or we learn a valuble lesson from trusting our own strength falling and getting back up. That was last season; our wonderful summer abroad.

03:: b a s e
Our fall season is completely different and full of new changes and challenges. Neither of us are working a school, but instead serving the base. Let me take a moment to say, this is actually ten times more challenging (for us) than leading a team of rambuncious indepedent youth to a foriegn country. We are missionaries technically, but sometimes when serving the base through little things which may seem meaningless can be difficult. God's really changed our perspective and shown Ted and I both what it means to serve where He has called us... and to do so whole heartedly. God really shook up our "plans" of leaving staff and traveling with a buddy, to staying on staff and joining the Timothy Team here until March of 2010. This was a huge and difficult descision which ultimetly led to God telling us clearly we need to serve here until then. And all the while, grow in our leadership and live our life as abundantely as Christ's gives.

04:: D a i l y
Ted
This quarter Ted is the maintenance director. He is really enjoying leading and changing the department for the better, and really putting God in the center of everything instead of just making it mundane every day jobs. I've am super proud of him. God is really doing a lot in him in leadership. It's been amazing to watch this process! Pray for grace, energy, strength, & a more detailed perspective for him as he serves there.
Jami
As for me, I am working as kitchen assistant which uses the tiniest part of my brain and the web department with uses every bit of my brain and energy. The kitchen job is super chill and I spend most of my time in the web department, working along side with two others to help create a new website for the base. I love the graphics and creative side to this job a ton! It's the coding side which is very challenging. I spent 2 1/2 hours one afternoon working on a project, proudly hitting enter and immediately realizing everything was wrong. I will never again make that mistake and for that I am thankful, but it was dissapointing. Pray for my mind & that I'll press in with my everything!

Thank you lovely friends for reading my ridiculously long winded blog!
x Jami

The first thing that popped into my mind when naming this blog was Chopsticks.
Chopsticks is a name for my randomosity in every aspect of my life. I have a chopsticks playlist, a chopsticks memoury box, a chopsticks email folder, a chopsticks picture folder, a chopsticks mix cd ... don't really know how this came about but it did and it sticks.

Hence the name of this blog.

Such Great Heights.

Here we are back in the "lower 48" as Alaskan's would say. It was interesting flying over the Rockies after seeing such massive snow tipped mountains in Alaksa. I'm not saying the Rockies aren't beautiful for I know they are, but once you have seen such great beauty it's hard not to compare.

The biggest shock to me was how flat our land is here. I guess I've always thought it was pretty hilly and mountainous, but really it's not at all. Here you have to drive a few hours to reach such great heights, in Alaska they are in your backyard. I love Colorado, please don't get me wrong, I just really love the beauty of Alaska too.

One thing I really enjoy about being home is the sun! We only had 2 maybe three sun moments in Alaska (I saw moments because there wasn't a full day of sun)!

Hope you enjoyed the photos of Alaska, and I may post more later! 

Travels by Foot, Train, and Sea.

 Watch the photo below first...glacier calving!

I was SO excited to get this on camera !

Ted was here for most of the boat ride, he was so sick. I woke him to see the glacier.

 beautiful 

this area was called God's view or something

The rainy summer made beautiful waterfalls.

The first views of this massive glacier

Those are mountains surrounding this glacier. Which means, yes, this glacier is HUGE!

I was in awe of icebergs. I've never seen anything like that before.

The blue hues are scattered back when light deeply penetrates frozen glaciers... i thought that was a really cool fact!

Ted's parents bought us an 8 hour cruise!

Kenai Star, the boat we took out.

taking photos was extremely wet and cold, but worth it.

Rainy view from our table, that's why I was outside for most. (oh and there is supposed to be an eagle on the top of this rock, but you can't even tell.)

Ted and his dad. The lakes are aqua from the glaciers. 

yikes...

Ted and I took a 4 hour train ride through the alaskan mountains!

This is one of my favourites. Check out the mountain reflection behind.

This is what you wear to a spontaneous hike. I was freezing.

Everything is blurred except the tunnel, i like it.

Side view of the train.

Pickin' blueberries... very very sour.

Look at the vibrant colours - from our hike.

Takin' some video for the fam. (YAY!)

Ted's a smarty.

This ain't no smokey the bear...

Salmon spawning... Ted was excited to show me the size of the fish here

Otter Lake on Fort Rich army post (where ted lived for 6 years)

The beginning of our hiking trip, we spotted moose!

They were so close, Anisa (Ted's mom) and I were frightened.

Ted's dad Ted (see how close we are!)