Christmas Blessings

Merry Christmas to you all in blogger land. Blessings to you all from the Delp house to yours!

Full Circle

I loved this song the first time I heard it, but yesterday, I saw this video and couldn't believe that it showed ECUADOR!!! I know we have probably all had those moments where certain things in our lives just come together. FOr me, I felt things really came full circle in my life. The song has a quote that says I wonder what life would be like if we let Jesus live through you and me...? It was a major challenge to me when I heard that. Sometimes I feel like such a failure and such a fallen person that HOW could Jesus use me when I am such a sinner. But I realize that He CAN, and He will and He does! WHen I saw this video and it showed the children in the garbage in Ecuador it just brought to the front of my mind God's call on our lives and how we can be used through HIm if we are willing. No matter where we are, no matter how clean or dirty we are, He can use us.
I am so excited about this and about sharing it with you. I hope it touches you and challenges YOU to be God's vessel, no matter WHERE you are, no matter how fallen or how dirty.

The VACCINE Controversy...Do they REALLY cause autism?????

I feel it is important to write about this because there is a lot of controversay out there surrounding it. There are a lot of parents who are not vaccinating their children because they think there is an increased risk that they will get autism from the vaccine, particularly the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine). Even Oprah last year had Jenny McCarthy on her show because her son who was diagnosed with Autism and "is now in recovery". I know that I can not relate to this because I don't have children and especially because I have not been in a situation where my child has been diagnosed with Autism, however, I do want to discuss what I have learned recently about this subject because I can empathize with families who ARE dealing with this.
First of all, I do not want to say that people shouldn't question what they are their health care providers are putting in their body. I think they SHOULD question and educate themselves. However, knowing WHERE you are getting the information is important. Checking out any book or ANY website on the internet is NOT the answer. The place I recommend researching is the CDC (Center for Disease Control) when researching anything with health. THis is what health care providers use. The website about vaccines is:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/default.htm
The issues surround autism and vaccines started with 2 research articles by Andrew Wakefield that hypothesized that the MMR vaccine caused Autism. To read more about this, go to the AMA (American Medical Assoication):
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/13697.html
There are also news articles and 20/20 specials that say these things too. Before accepting all these as fact, it is important to arm yourself with information that is factual. I believe the CDC does a good job of this because they are their own entity, they don't get money from drug reps or other businesses to make certain statements. They research these issues and report the results.

I spoke with a Pediatric Neurologist about this issue who takes care of children with autism. He said there is no substantial research that supports the idea that vaccines are directly related to MMR. He said one issue he has noted is that Autism usually peaks and is diagnosed around the age of 1, the same age that children receive their 1st MMR vaccine. This is why a lot of people make the correlation between the vaccine and Autism.
THe other problem is that there is no definitive cause that has been associated with Autism. It's not like diabetes or heart disease where we know the reasons that cause it.
The bottom line is, parents need to have the facts about these issues before making the decision NOT to vaccinate their children. Vaccines have been created to prevent people from HAVING certain diseases such as Smallpox (no longer an issue), Polio, Measles, Mumps, Rubella. Many of these diseases are deadly or life altering. Before the decision is made to NOT vaccinate your child, know your facts. Don't make a decision based on a few articles written. If everyone makes the decision NOT to vaccinate their child, it puts others at risk in the long term for HAVING the diseases mentioned above. I don't think anyone wants to see POLIO or RUBELLA as the norm for children again because they haven't been vaccinated.
AGAIN, I want to stress that I empathize with families who are dealing with Autism. It is difficult, but don't automatically jump to the conclusion that vaccines are the only culprit. We all want to know the WHY's and how things are caused, and I suppose blame has to be put somewhere. Sometimes though, we just DON'T know. Although difficult, we have to educate ourselves and know before we assume.
I'll get off my soap box now and as always would love to hear YOUR opinions...

Did you miss us??????

Well, at least it hasn't been FOREVER since we have posted on our blog. We are still alive and well, busy as ever! A quick re-cap of what we have been up to...
In July we moved to a great house that is on the property of our church-Northwest Covenant in Mt. Prospect, IL. Joel is doing grounds work at the church and in turn, we are able to live in the house. It has been SUCH a huge blessing and very humbling for us. So many people in the church and community have made us feel SO welcome and they re-painted and re-finished the entire floor! It's AMAZING! I will post pictures of the inside of the house when we have everything in it's place.
In September, we had visitors from BOTH sides of the family. Joel's parents and brother and fam came and visited as our first guests. A couple of days later, Kim's parents came and in a whirlwind changed the entire outside of the house! You can see the pictures. They brought TONS of landscaping goodies including roses and lavender! I think they were a bit tuckered out since we pulled out gigantic shrubs in the front of the house! Thanks mom and dad!
Kim is still plugging away in school-just a couple quarters away from being done! She's in her pediatric rotation right now which will come in handy for Ecuador!
Joel just today started as a manager of a Verizon store in a town about 30 minutes away from us. He is excited to get to put his own touch on a store-he's got some great ideas.
Hireq and Patah are loving the new house and run around in the big basement. I think they LOVE their new surroundings and love looking out the front window and all the people and dogs walking by. They are quite the hit with the kids in the neighborhood. The parent's like them too because their kids are worn out after playing with 'em.
So, that's an update in a nutshell. Leave a comment and let us know how y'all are doing.

Before and After pictures of our house!

After picture of the front of the house

Before picture of the front of the house. After picture of the side of the house

Before picture of the side of the house

After picture of the back of the house (facing the church)

Before picture of the back of the house

We went BOATIN'

We were finally able to connect with some friends at church who have a boat in Lake Geneva, WI. ON Wed night we all got together and had nice snacks on the boat and enjoyed each other's company and the beautiful creation of our God. Can't tell you how much it meant to us to do this and how relaxing it was in the middle of the week to get out of the city. Thanks Carol and Irwin!

Residency Update

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on my (Kim's) residency. My residency hours are 300 hours after I am done with my school work where I will work with a nurse practitioner or doctor in the area related to what I will be doing after graduation. Ideally, we would have liked to do that in Ecuador since that is where we are going to hopefully be working long term. When Joel was in Ecuador, I talked with my school about this and the answer eventually was "no" to doing it in Ecuador. Bummer! We were excited about this prospect because it means we could have gotten to Ecuador quicker. That's OK. Our plan will be for me to finish school this time next year and to do my residency hours here and then take my certification boards here. After that we will plan on leaving.
Just a quick update. Thanks for your love, support and prayers!

Our DEEPEST Apologies

I have to send this apology out to those of you who read this and say I am SOOOOO sorry about the music on this blog. I had downloaded a lot of Christian songs from playlist to play when this blog is accessed. I was just listening as I was doing homework and realized there is a song on there under a Christian artists name, but it is NOT. It has vulgar words and themes. I just now realized this. Again, my sincere apologies. I hope you all do not think less of us or are not reading the blog because of this. Truly, know that I would NOT have had this on here had I realized that this song was playing. I have since removed playlist from this blog. Please accept are apologies. We did not realize until today.

New Job and New House.... Good!

Well, we can officially announce that we are moving... whohoo!!!! and I (this is still Joel!) am starting two new jobs.

One is with Verizon Wireless where I will be a Store Manager In-Training. I'm very excited about this opportunity and it will be nice and close to our new home.

My second job is related to our move. I am taking over as the grounds person at our church. Basically, I'll be responsible for mowing the lawn and snowblowing during the winter and making sure everything is locked up at night. In the end, it's just making sure the place is in good working order. The awesome thing is that I don't get paid!!!! Rather, Kim and I get a free house to live in!!! Hot dog!!! Pretty cool, eh? Yeah... we are going from almost paying $1,000 per month in rent living in Chicago to moving into a 4 bedroom house in the burbs for what equates to about 2 or 3 hours worth of work on average per week. It's safe to say we are pumped!

We are moving on July 30th. We have only lived in Chicago since we have been married and we will definitely miss it. At the same time, we are also very excited about being right next door to our church family.

We'll be emailing out our new address soon, we just wanted to let you know.

Ecuador, Ecuador, Ecuador!

Hey y'all!

This is Joel and I'm doing my first ever post on our blog!!! Whoo-hoo!!! Sorry for not being the communication giant that Kim is....

I had to blog becuase I just got back from... well... I guess you can probably tell by the title.

I had a fantastic trip! It was a part of our church's (Northwest Covenant) every 3 year youth mission trip to Ecuador. Kim and I went 3 years ago and that is where we started feeling like Ecuador may be where we will end up. We've visited one more time since then, but since I am between jobs, it worked out perfectly for me to head down to South America for 9 days.

We were again helping our missionary friends Karen and Carlos Feijoo with the ministries they are a part of. Our primary work was in the small town of Carabuela, which is a town just outlying Otavalo, where one of the world's best markets is located. There we were helping Fundacion Amor A La Vida, a foundation dedicated to youth of Carabuela. Here some pictures of the foundation and kids.

We were able to fix up those desks that you see above. We also did a lot of other work at the Foundation and ran a VBS and just loved on a bunch kids. It was a ton of fun!

The kids on the trip have created a blog so you can track their progress... http://www.nwccyouth2008.blogspot.com/

I guess I could get into a lot more details, but I'll just share pictures for now...

Time with Family

We got to get out of the city for awhile this past week to visit with JOel's family in Goshen. It was fun to spend time with family and to see those we hadn't seen in a couple months. We had some nice weather and played lots of Tennis and Joel even got to golf!!!!! It was a nice relaxing week for us.

As a little update and prayer request...
Joel is able to make a trip to Ecuador and leaves this Saturday for 8 days. He will mainly be spending time with the youth kids from our church, but will also be able to connect with people involved in future ministry. He will be trying to set stuff up for our short term mission adventure coming up in about a year. Please pray that God will give him opportunities to set these plans up and will guide him in the area where HE wants us. We are praising Jesus for this time he can spend in Ecuador! (I am a little jealous that he is going and I have to work and be in school).

Further updates to follow...
Blessings to all.





We can clean up nice sometimes


Reenna showing her balancing skills


The cousins playing together


Joel's older sister and her family


JOel's older brother and his family

New FAV recipe

Well, I was watching the cooking channel recently and I found a great new summer, HEALTHY recipe. It is
Lemon Basil Salmon Pasta
1-4 Salmon FIllets
1 lbs (less if for less people)whole wheat pasta
2 cloves of diced garlic
Zest of a lemon
Juice from 1-2 lemons
Basil (as little or as much for your tasting)
2 tsp Cajun Seasoning
2tsp Paprika
2 tsp Chili Powder
Capers-optional

Cook the pasta in a salted saucepan until done-drain

Season with fish with cajun seasoning, paprika, and chili powder-you can use more if you like it spicier. Cook the fish in a pain until flaky-or grill it.

Mince garlic, mix it with lemon juice and zest and cut up the basil. When the pasta is done and drained, mix it with the lemon juice mixture and toss it. Place the salmon on top and enjoy.

THe original recipe said to season the salmon with just salt and pepper-but I added the cajun stuff to spice it up a bit!
HOpe you enjoy!

Top 10 signs your car doesn't have AC

#10 The temp outside is cooler than your car after a 1 hour drive with the window's down!
#9 You CAN actually fry an egg on the dash board
#8 When you leave a bottle of water in the car during grocery shopping and you come out and it's boiling!
#7 You accidently leave chapstick in the car and go to put it on and it's a puddle in your lap (yes this actually has happened and it's always when I am dressed up).
#6 After a nice drive during rush hour traffic, it looks like you have run a marathon from the amount of sweat pouring off of you.
#5 When you go into the gym to work out and they look at your funny because you look like you already HAVE worked out!
#4 There's always the possiblity of heat stroke on any given day
#3 During the summer no one else can ride in your car-if they do-you have to have a consent form that says "you have been warned"
#2 You have to stick your head out the windown with you dogs (and the slobber from doing it is refreshing)
and #1 Every time you get out of the car, it feels (and probably looks) like you wet your pants!

Prince Caspian

We saw Prince Caspian last night and really enjoyed it. Have you all seen it? WHat did you think? I haven't read the book since I was a kid, I should have before I saw the movie. It is interesting, for those of you who saw the Lord of the Rings, there were a lot of similarities. The help from the trees, the help from the water. We were wondering, who wrote which book first, Tolkien or Lewis? We really enjoyed it and I am sad it hasn't gotten the viewing that was expected. I suppose it is hard going up against Indiana Jones. I highly recommend seeing it. I did think there were some scenes not suitable for young children. My 5 year old niece saw it and was scared in some places. So, what did y'all think? For the trailer, click on the link above.

Happy 6th Anniversary!

To my hubby on our 6th anniversary. I love you more now than then. You have taught me more about life, love, marriage, and God than anyone else. I appreciate you and I love you. Thank you for loving me when it's easy and when it's hard. I love you. Happy Anniversary Joelie!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful mom! SHe is the greatest mom ever and really is the most amazing lady I have ever met. I hope I grow up to be just like her. Wish I could be with you mom! Love you and Happy Birthday!

SPRING is Springing in Chicago...

We had some friends in town last weekend and had fun enjoying the Spring weather. We loved seeing the tulips and enjoying the lake. Enjoy the pictures.

It's OFFICIAL

We have OFFICIALLY been accepted as short term MISSIONARIES, yes I said MISSIONARIES for the Evangelical Covenant Church! Our plan...
We are actually not going to be going to Ecuador for at least a year. I will finish up my last year of graduate work and then HOPEFULLY I will be able to do my residency (similar to what a doctor has to do, it's 300 hours of clinical work in the field)in Ecuador working with either a nurse practitioner or a doctor. We will plan in going in either fall of winter of '09 for a 1-year short term experience, come back to the states and finish raising our support, and then go LONG TERM! We are so pumped and I just thought I would share it. The dream is getting closer.

Updates, Updates, Updates...

So, I haven't posted in a while, for that I apologize. I am sure you are waiting with bated breath to know results of the Pharmacology test...
I passed! YEAH! Thank GOD! I passed that class as well as the other 2. Hallelujah!!
IN other news...
We recently returned from Hilton Head, SC for a vacation with friends. It was so nice, but unlike me, I really didn't take any pictures so sorry not to share our fun time on the beach with you. It was a wonderful time and a well needed rest after a rough couple months of stress!
Other developments as far as the mission field for us. We had an interview on Sunday with our mission board from our church to recommend us to the Evangelical Covenant Church as missionaries. This is the second to last step in our process to become short-term missionaries. Our estimated time for this is next summer after I am done with school. I am going to hopefully plan doing my residency hours on the mission field. We will do short term work for 1 year, come back and raise the rest of our support and then go for the long haul!
This interview was a really great time of reflection for us and a realization that our call is FINALLY becoming real! It is so exciting. It is always fun to be able to re-live your testimony and call on your life and have people be excited for you! It was a great time.
So, that is a quick catch up in the life of the Delp's. I will work on getting some pictures soon.
Peace and Blessings!

THIS is it!!!!!!!!

Hopefully this is the LAST post I will ever have on here about Pharmacology! For those of you following this saga, my FINAL exam will be tomorrow (Thursday) in the afternoon. PLEASE pray for clarity and CALMNESS and that I don't run out of time. I will be studying a TON today so please also pray for wise time management and clarity (I have been sicky sicky this week). I am done with my other 2 classes, just waiting on grades for them, but I think I pulled B's out in both! Anyway, please pray. I covet them and appreciate them mo than you know!

FREE SPORTS BRA CLICK HERE!

For all you sporty spices out there, click on the link that says click here for your free sports bra. Pretty SWEET huh?

Plato's Closet

So for those of you that are clothes people...
I guess I hope ALL of you are clothes people, but for those of you that really like to shop, I found a place, actually a few years ago called Plato's Closet. I was so excited to go there again. The first time was shopping for my honeymoon. I bought a ton of fun clothes for really cheap. You also turn in your own clothes that you don't want anymore and get money for them. So, I went to the website and was concerned when it said,
"a unique teen fashion franchise"! YIKES!!
I am not a teen anymore! I suppose the first time I went I wasn't either! Can I still go?

Iditarod 2008

Since we were in Elim, Alaska, and even before I have been fascinated by the Iditarod. It is set to start today March 1st from Anchorage. Follow it on the site above. I was fascinated to know that the trail actually started because of a diptheria outbreak in 1925 in Nome (the end of the race). Mushers carried the serum over 600 miles in just a few hours to save many lives! It's a great story! Anyway, learn more about it. It's very cool!

Questions Answered

In attempting to keep with sharing stories and answering questions about "medical stuff", I thought I would answer Amy's question about Automated External Defibrillators (AED's) and their placement on women. The great thing about AED's is that they will walk you through exactly what you are supposed to do and they even give you pictures where to place the pads. For women it is usually no different. You put the pads basically between the breasts on the sternum and to the right and below the right breast. If a women is well-indowed, you can also place the pads one between the breasts or right above the L breast and the other directly in the same place on the back. THis is at times difficult for just one person, but usually if you are doing this in a public place, you won't have that problem.
AED's are awesome and they really DO save lives. My recommendation to non-healthcare providers is to enroll in a basic CPR course. They will not only teach you basic CPR, but it also teaches you how to use AED's properly. You really can save lives by having this information-you NEVER know when you will use it.
More information can be found at the above link.

CURVES update

I have been waiting to update on the new program I have started at Curves to see how the results are. The new program is called CURVES SMART. It is the same amount of time, but is a MAJOR workout. In this month alone since I started, I have lost 1% body fat, my BMI has gone down 1 point and I have lost inches to the hips, thighs, and other places too! I have lost 1 pound. I figure 1 pound is OK since I am replacing fat with muscle (it does weigh more!). Anyway, just thought I'd update you. Again this CURVES SMART is a great new program. If you are thinking of joining, make sure your Curves has this program.

OK Prayer Warriors...

So, next week (Tues or Wed) I have my second Pharmacology test. I am totally pumped with how well the first one went, but the second one is like twice the material and it's 3 times as hard (LDR curves, G-coupled proteins, and muscarinic receptors, sounds fun hugh!?)
So, if you think about it between now and especially next Tue or Wed, please pray for me and the test.
Pray for:
-Clarity and understanding of this massive amount of material
-Not to be anxious while taking the test
-Time management the next few days

Snowstorm pictures and some of the girls...

Yesterday we had a snow storm. The whole fam stayed home together and we got to just chill and watch the snow, watch movies, study, and just hang out. I LOVE SNOW DAYS-just like when I was a kid.


View from our 3rd floor apartment


Snow pictures from our sunroom


Patah really likes this snow day stuff


Hireq and Patah relaxing on Joel's legs



Hireq enjoying the snow