Tugri, Panama Missions Trip

If you like to see beautiful mountains and tons of extremely happy children (although they have NOTHING), then this is the post for you! 

In January my husband, Matt and I went on a missions trip up into the mountains of Panama to a very small village called Tugri. This has been an ongoing mission to the Ngobe Indian tribe there that has been happening since 2006 with a team from First Free Church out of Onalaska, WI.

The full story of Tugri and how missionaries were brought up there is a very long one, but I can assure you, it is a complete God story. Even while we were there, so many things happened that just proved how clear it is that God wants His people working up in Tugri with the Ngobe.

The children were very comfortable around us, and the adults are warming up to us now. Several adults and children came to Christ while we were there, which was such a blessing to see and be apart of. Our work there consisted mainly of putting a concrete floor in the ministry building that was built on the last couple trips. This building, aside from the school, is the only thing in Tugri other than small homes. It will be used for DTS (discipleship training school) classes, church, and whatever else the community needs. The people that travel hours and hours on foot through the mountains to attend the DTS will also be able to stay there over night during future DTS sessions.

Aside from pouring the concrete floor and the DTS that was happening, we had a Children's ministry program during the day and also showed Christian movies every night using a bed sheet and a generator.

There is so much more I could say about this amazing trip, the culture of the Ngobe, and the need for Christ in Tugri, but I will let the pictures do the talking... 

The school in Tugri where we stayed. Classes go up to 6th grade.

Being one of three married couples on the trip we got our own room! It was a back room where the teachers stay for the week when school is in session. 

There are lots of hungry, wild puppies everywhere. These mountains were the view out of our room (which is in the building at the right of this picture). 

The school's garden. All the fences are made like this.

Lots of smiling faces at the children's ministry!

Don't eat that!!

Precious feeties

I loved his little mow-hawk! It stood straight up with his hair's natural grease...

There's no question these two are siblings!

Another hungry puppy in the school yard.

Silly little Ruth... One of Pastor Raphael's many children.

The walk from the school to the job site. 

One day I turned to the right and realized I was literally standing right under a rainbow.

My hard working husband at the job site. He is closest to the camera. I helped at the job site too some days... I was a rock shoveling girl! 

Walk back from the ministry building.

A Ngobe home with a nice yard.

Matt with just one of our many buddies. The little boys really loved him! The kids don't get affection from either of their parent's in this culture, so it was so nice to give them all the love they were clearly craving. Note: another style of Ngobe homes in the background.

I loved him!

The kitchen at the school!

 Yep, this is where the ladies cooked (over a fire) for us! Some very yummy meals too.

Mi Amigo

Say Cheese!!

There we are! With the side of the kitchen in the background and the garden to the left.

During a fun activity of picking up trash. Very serious girls and silly little boys. 

Missionary kid photo bomb! ;)

He had a bit of an accident during one of our activities. His sister stuck him behind a tree to finish up and he was just fine after that! :)

The Oh-so-charming Santiago. 

He had little sparkly eyes and always a HUGE smile for you!

Left our mark on the new floor.

Matt finishing up the very last section of the floor! Yippee! 

A little dirty.

This is Pastor Raphael's home. It is up on the hill behind the school. He is standing in the porch area along with his son, little Raphael. :)

 

And this would be the view from his house!

Here is the inside of the home. Keep in mind, this is an incredibly nice Ngobe home. The mission team built it for him and his family a few years back. He even just got electricity! One of the only homes up there with it. He will charge missionary's electronics for .25/hour. :)

This is the "Serpent". Tail on the right, face on the left... ?? Somehow. 

Coming down off the mountains we stopped at the ocean, and my was it beautiful!!

The was a field across from the YWAM base with some pretty cute cows.

For one day we visited the Embera tribe. They are only hours away from the Ngobe, but they are much more vibrant people. They are very crafty and creative and always working to better themselves.

The little Embera boys thought it was great to hang off of Matt and be lifted in the air!

Matt got an arm workout!

Mr. Chocolate. :)

Hope you enjoyed this little piece of Panama - we sure did, and we plan to go back to Tugri and do more work in the future. 

Blessings to you and yours,

Olivia

Sharing at: Sundays at Home, Silver Penny Sundays, Tweak it Tuesday, Party in your PJ's, Feathered Nest Friday, Friday's Unfolded

Efficiency Apartment Tour

It's finally here! The efficiency apartment tour that I promised oh so long ago (like almost a year!?) when I gave you all

 a peek into the apartment.

I have had this done for quite some time, but I have been so busy that I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. (Just got back from a missions trip - i'll have to post about that later.) 

So, I figured I better post this before we move out...at the end of the month! Haha 

That's right...we are moving. Moving back to the country where we belong! :)

But I will miss this little place. Our first place together. 

It got us through our college years and has been a cozy little spot of our own. 

The Foyer

The spot next to the door where we drop our keys and mail
also conveniently doubles as our bedside table!

which brings me to...

The Master Bedroom

My mom made the sign above our bed. 

It was on top of some old doors at our wedding that led to the ceremony site.

Matt got me the "Marche Fleurs" canvas for my birthday one year.
I love the colors, especially the purples in it.

Okay, in real life it's never that tidy.

The "chandelier" above our bed. 

It probably weighs a pound, and husband is still scared it's gonna fall on him! :)

We like to smell good.

This is how the bed typically looks, but if I want some more color...

...I just switch out the pillows and add a throw blanket!

The Living Room

Hehe! Well...the TV is usually in the living room right? 

So i guess this is it, cause Mr. 19" here is the only one we have.

There is also a wing chair that I some times call the living room, but it is behind the TV.
I guess it can be kind of tricky to define spaces when you have such an open floor plan like we do. ;)

The Office

Okay, so on the other side of the.....room..... there is this desk. That is not being used as a desk.

You can see its makeover HERE.

As you can see, it has turned into more of a vignette area with a slight kitchen overflow. 

The microwave sits right next to my pretty pictures and shells from our honeymoon to

Cozumel.  

The closet to the left of our desk is the pantry.

As you will see next, there is not a whole lotta kitchen cabinet space for food.

The Kitchen

This is my adorable little stove...the second one.
First one had a carbon monoxide leek and gave us scary headaches. Go check and make sure the batteries in your carbon monoxide detector are still alive...it could keep you alive! :)

And here is the rest of the charming little kitchen. 

In my dreams I paint these cabinets white, add some nice molding to the top and add some flat black hardware. Too bad it's a rental. Apparently these are the "really nice" cabinets. 

I have gotten a peek into some of the other apartments that haven't been updated, and they are very 70's, dark, eeew, so I try not to complain. 

A better look at my "just over one square foot" of counter space.

And in real life, there is a dish drying rack there, so really I just get a few inches.

Good thing we have a big table!

My above-the-counter decor. Can you tell I'm more of a texture person than a color person?

So, I'm not much of a magnet person. I think they tend to make the fridge feel really cluttered, which ends up making the kitchen seem messier/more cluttered than it already probably is.

This is my compromise:

I put the ugly, more necessary magnets, important notes, etc. on the side of the fridge and the pretty ones on the front (neatly displayed - not random and chaotic). I got the mini wine bottles at the store I used to work at, and the wedding picture magnet was a super cool Christmas gift from my friend. 

As you probably noticed in the very first picture, the bathroom is right next to the kitchen. 

Like literally, you could check on the cookies while you were going potty. 

If you needed to. 

I had to get an extra special shot of my sweet World Market tea pot. 

My sister got it for me for my 21st birthday. Matt was always so against me getting a tea pot because it would be something that always sat out and took up space. 

But he hasn't complained since it's been there.

...I think he sees how charming it is and secretly loves it. :)

The Bathroom

Just a glimpse in, because really, it's not that exciting.

The braided rug, however, is one of my most prized decor possessions. 

My grandma made that for me as a bridal shower gift! 

Handmade with love by her little, old, super-hard-working hands. 

She passed away in the fall of the same year, so it is a beautiful piece that reminds me of her every morning when I get out of the shower.

The Dining Room

Wouldn't be complete without that charming AC unit. ;)
But I do have a pretty sweet antique farmhouse table, don't I?
You can see more of the table and its makeover HERE.

The hand-carved sign above the table is another very important piece.
My grandpa has always made signs like that, and after grandma passed away he went to town making them to occupy his time. I was so happy to get one! I'm sure they are harder to make as an 83 year old. I like to think of the squirrel as grandpa. ;)

Also, I tucked some curtains in on top of the ugly vertical blinds that the apartment has.
I would probably just rip those ugly things right off the wall if it weren't for needing privacy and darkness from the parking lot lights at night.
Yea, the view is of a parking lot. :/ Complete with dumpsters, stray cats, and old ugly cars.
The other side of the building gets a view of lawn and big trees. On the bright side though, we can keep a watch on our cars. There is always a bright side.

This is the view when you walk in the door.
The chair is the second half of the living room I was talking about earlier.
I'm really glad we have a large window, since there is only one, and I am slightly obsessed with natural sunlight. If you look at the majority of the rooms on My Home Style board on Pinterest, you will see that most of the rooms are flooded with natural light. I love the sun!

I drew the efficiency to scale for one of my home decorating homework assignments.
Everything is basically pretty accurate except that the front door is drawn swinging the wrong way.
But this is proof that I really do only have like 1 square foot of counter space.


I really will miss this little place.
There were lazy days where we would be laying around and it would be just fine.
Then there were lazy days where we would be laying around and it would feel like the walls were closing in on us and we had to go out and do something.
Overall, we've loved it here though. For a young (and poor) married couple's first place, it did the trick. Soon, it will be time to do some house hunting and get our hands dirty with a fixer upper.
Maybe i'll find that farmhouse I dream of! :) I can hope right...


Thanks for taking the tour.
I probably could have captured it all in two pictures, but what fun would that be??

Don't forget to follow along - there are lots of big life changes coming!
I may have a real house to decorate some day soon, and you wouldn't wanna miss that. :)
Who knows what crazy things I'll do!?


Blessings,
Olivia

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A Merry Little Christmas

We did head back up to the country for Christmas, which has been lovely, but we also had our own little Christmas at the efficiency before we left.

We didn't have time to harvest a real tree this year, but I did find this gem for $2.99 at goodwill! It certainly looks fake, but it didn't have holes, and was the lowest priced one. It came with a stand, but since I didn't have a tree skirt I put it in the garden urn...which I think I like better.

I also got the cool crystal ball patio lights at goodwill... I decided to put them on the tree, along with the pink pearl garland I got from Painted Porch, to help pretty it up.

A typical pinterest project... my fridge snowman!

And then there are the stocking and gifts under the tree...and microwave. ;) 

And lastly, my above the counter decor. It's really just a random mixture of Christmas objects I had. Nothing actually goes together! However the faux white-pine picks were new this year. I just fluffed them up and stuck them up there. I got them where I work and am hoping there are still some there when I get back...just marked way down since it's after Christmas. :)

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas!!

We sure did.

Blessings,

Olivia

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Venison Stroganoff {because I really love my husband}

Hey guys...I'm alive! 

I know, it's been a looong break from blogging, but Chardonnay (that's my puter's name) was sick. So, FYI: if you get an update that looks just like a regular computer update, but is for C++, do not do it! Husband thought it would be a good idea... Nope!

And honestly it was just nice to have a little break, since I was starting to feel kinda burnt out with having to come up with a post every week. I will probably switch to bi-monthly blogging now, and try to make the posts more "quality". ;)

........

So! This last week I was feeling really loving and decided I would cook my husband some venison. I say that because I'm not really a fan (of venison). I only know of two people that actually know how to cook the stuff in a way that makes me actually want to eat it (shout out to Julia Holum and Heidi Burger). It's just too gamey tasting. Eh!

Anyhoo... wanting to surprise Matt with some meat for dinner, (I cook a lot of vegetarian dishes) I decided to see if stroganoff would be a good disguise. 

I spent AN HOUR (literally, an hour - not exaggerating at all here) rinsing out the blood from the meat. *cringe here* Because I actually wanted to be able to eat it myself, and the thought of it cooking in it's own blood is absolutely repulsive to me. THEN, after that was done I had to touch all the pieces in order to cut it up! So. proud. of. myself. Seriously, I gave myself a few extra point for brave cooking. I was really feeling loving!

Well enough of my ramblings about venison... I should just share the recipe, because it turned out pretty well. If you like venison that is. ;) I let Matt have all the leftovers....

Slow-Cooker Venison Stroganoff

- 2 pounds of venison steak (rinsed and cut into bite sized pieces)

- 1 large onion, chopped

- 3ish cloves of garlic, smashed

- 1 package mushrooms, chopped

- pepper/garlic powder/beef bullion cubes etc. 

- 2 cans cream of mushroom soup

- 1 tub of sour cream

- 1 bag of egg noodles 

Combine the first 6 ingredients in the slow-cooker and cook on low for 6 hours. When it's almost done cooking, stir in as much sour cream as you like, (I used about 3/4 of the container) and make your egg noodles. And crescents, because errbody loves a crescent roll. 

*special note: I also used some cornstarch to thicken it up a bit at the end because I think I dumped some water in that was on the cutting board with the meat. I avoid touching it as much as possible when it's raw :). 

And there ya have it! Most loving wife award goes to... 

Alright, I promise I'll be back to blogging regularly now.

Thank you so much for stopping by and following along!

Blessings to you this week,

Olivia

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