Lisa Beth

Pictures to come, but for now….

There are certain things that cross language barriers…

Smiles
Music
Sharing a Meal
Playing Sports
Hugs
Tears
Prayer
Pictures

These are things that can be shared between people… felt and understood whether or not your spoken languages are the same. God showed me this in fresh and heart warming ways during our time in Germany as we were able to experience these things with people we were blessed to meet during our 10 day stay.

I started out the trip, honestly, with these hesitations and doubts about how effective we could be in ministering to people in Germany when none of us speak German! (Well, Eric is the exception… just ask him to count to 12 in German, and he will count each number loudly to you with gusto and a nod of his head for each number). Now of course, I realize that we as Americans are very spoiled in that the English language is pretty much spoken and understood mostly everywhere at least to an extent. I think my hesitation came into play more as I prepared/pondered what my “role” on the trip would be as a musician playing some of the songs I’ve written.

I was unsure of how these opportunities would play out in a place where the language most familiar to the people I was singing to was completely foreign to me. I’m also a detail person… a bit of a Type A planner personality. I knew that with this type of trip, there was a lot that would require “going with the flow”, being available and flexible. I didn’t know all the details of where I’d be playing, if there would be a keyboard or piano, if there would be translators, etc. My one prayer request before I left was that I would be flexible and just willing to jump in and sing however and wherever God had planned. That I would be more concerned about His agenda than mine. That I would just be this vessel and be used in spite of my human limitations and uncertainties.

Well, thank God that He is so much bigger than the limitations my mind puts on circumstances. He wasted no time in showing me this right away as soon as we arrived in Germany. Before I even played my first song at Rob’s church on that first Sunday, (March 14th), I found myself surrounded by a church family, singing worship songs in German, and tears flowing from my eyes. As I closed my eyes and heard the familiar melody of songs like “How Great is Our God” with lyrics being sung in a way I never had heard, I was overcome with how beautiful it was. Even songs whose melodies I didn’t even recognize, much less the words, brought me into the presence of God in a powerful way because I saw the hearts of worship around me that were singing out the songs so passionately. It expanded my view of The Church… it made me realize how week after week, while I am with my church family in Raleigh, North Carolina, there are churches across the globe singing a song like “How Great is Our God” in every language, and God knows every language. And He is hearing it like this beautiful International Medley of praise to Him. The people standing with me in that church building in Dorsten, Germany really felt like brothers and sisters in Christ. Singing with them, at times trying to sing the songs in their language, I felt like I got a glimpse of what Heaven might be like. Instead of the experience making me feel out of place or alienated because I spoke a different language, it only assured me that God is bigger than languages. That music is something He created to be a powerful avenue of worship that can be entered into with our brothers and sisters in Christ no matter what language we speak.

I love that God started out by teaching me this lesson right away…and after that, as each day’s opportunities presented themselves, all God asked of us was to be willing to use the giftings that He gave each of us. To be present and engaged when we talked to people and heard their stories. To see how what we communicate is really only 8% verbal and the rest is all the non-verbal stuff…the HEART…

The second Sunday (March 21st) I was reminded of the other thing I love about music that never ceases to amaze me. We were gathering with the church family that Duane and Daylin Beach minister to in Vilsek near a US Army base. The majority of the church body there was made up of American soldiers and their families, so this time, it wasn’t the language barrier I was nervous about. The thought on my mind was more, “What can I possibly have to say in my songs that talk about things like financial uncertainty or learning to surrender to God when things don’t go the way I plan” to a group of people who deal with stress and sadness and fear and loneliness and loss and uncertainty to a degree I’ve never known? I suddenly felt like all I had gone through in the past year that had birthed these songs was so pale and “grade schoolish” compared to what these families face on a daily basis. Again, I just asked God to somehow use what I had to bring. Singing songs is like opening up your journal and putting it to music in front of an audience. It is very exposing, but there is something about singing my songs that just lights me up inside. I LOVE to sing and I LOVE to proclaim truths about my God that He has shown me. How faithful He is. How generous and kind. How loving and personal. How NEAR He is to the broken-hearted. I feel like I am most alive in those moments when I’m playing and singing out those musical journal entries. After the service, a woman whose husband was about to be deployed to Iraq said to me, “That song you sang about uncertainty really spoke to me and my friend today. Our husbands are being deployed soon, and what you said really ministered to our hearts. Thank you.” I am constantly stunned by these responses. Here, I wrote this song because I was nervous about our house foreclosing, and this woman resonated with the lyrics even though her situation was so different (and so much harder) than mine. Music is truly the universal language. My heart is over-flowing with thanks to God for giving me the opportunity to sing a few songs in the beautiful country of Germany to the beautiful people living in Germany.

It’s that time of year at the Beavers’ house!! Eric is all about his christmas cookie baking!! He doesn’t mess around, and he goes all out baking up a storm.  First, you must set the mood…. Christmas tree lit? check.

Christmas music with the Rat Pack playing over the surround sound speakers? check.  Coffee brewing? check.  Bottle of Duplin Christmas wine? check… (haha j/k… that’s not a cookie baking staple, we just found it when we were shopping for all the ingredients and thought it’d be fun to try.)

And of course, what is a cookie baking party without some friends to join in on the fun?  Last year, our dear friend Kelly helped us with our cookie baking, and this year she joined us as well as her room mate/our friend Anna and our friend Mike (who took most of these pictures).

We were so bummed that Eric’s mom couldn’t join us, as she was planning on coming up for the whole weekend to bake cookies and watch Christmas movies with us, and come to Hope Cafe’s Christmas party, but was unable to do so because of some bad weather forecasts.  We missed you Tammie!!!

The “first shift” was all Eric… baking his classic hershey kiss cookies and the peanut butter cup cookies…

you can almost taste them just by looking at that melty chocolate, can’t you?!

Then we watched one of our favorite newer Christmas classic movies… “Elf” with Will Ferrel.  So many funny scenes and quotable lines… kept us laughing the whole movie even though we’ve seen it so many times.

After the movie, I took over the second shift of cookie baking and mixed up my go-to Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix-in-a-bag  (I do not claim to be a pro in the kitchen by any means)…. and then we all contributed our creative talents to decorating them with colored icing.

Eric even humored me and let Mike take a Christmas picture of us by our tree  Merry Christmas from the Beavers!!!

Ah, the much anticipated Christmas Tree search!

We had talked about whether to go to a tree farm and cut down our own, or go to the Farmer’s market and choose a pre-cut tree.  There were advantages and disadvantages to both.  The disadvantage of cutting down your own tree, is that in our area, they don’t grow the nice Frasier Firs that are so popular and perfect for the ideal “look” of a Christmas Tree.  These trees are only grown in the far western part of our state.  But of course, the disadvantage of buying a pre-cut tree is that you miss out on the “whole experience” of wandering through the fields of trees and searching for that perfect tree and then taking it down with your own hands with a saw!!

So, you are wondering… what did we do?  BOTH!  Yes, we decided first to go to a tree farm and see if maybe they had any good looking firs growing on site.  We knew this particular farm also had shipped in pre-cut trees if we ended up not finding any to cut down ourselves.

Eric’s internet search led us to this place called  ”Back Achers” Christmas Tree Farm

(and yes, that is a wild turkey on the top of the truck… not so wild though, as he and his friends were everywhere, mingling with the tree farm guests… very random and a bit bizarre, but added to the whole experience I guess)

Upon arrival, we meandered around the “cut your own” section, but quickly decided against the long needled trees in favor of the pre-cut short needled frasiers.   We watched as the older gentlemen who owned the farm bagged up others’ trees for $1….

we were thinking of spending around $30-$40 on an 8 foot tree… we thought… cute little family owned tree farm, more reasonable prices than buying it “in town”.  wow were we wrong!  There was not a tree there under $65!!  Craziness!  We promptly got right back in the truck to try Option B… destination:  the Raleigh Farmer’s Market!

At first when we arrived, we were “heckled” and “harassed” by an obnoxious tree salesman trying to get us to buy one of his $85 trees… yeah, no thanks.  We were getting discouraged again thinking are we seriously going to have to pay a fortune for a live tree?  when we came upon this wonderful man here with me in the picture below!

I know he doesn’t exactly look as thrilled as I am in this picture, but I assure you, he was extremely friendly and had the most endearing southern accent with words that whistled through his dentures as he spoke.  He was a part of a church group that brought trees in from Boone, NC.  He was an avid Appalachian State fan, and told me how his wife works at ASU and gets him free tickets to the sports games.  His trees were much more reasonably priced, and he wasn’t pushy at all.  Here is our “loot” with it’s much-more-reasonable price tag attached

He helped to trim off the branches at the bottom of the tree, and I quickly scooped them up, knowing there would be some decorating use for the extra pine boughs

He suggested that Eric get his picture with his saw… he was all about helping us get pictures to document the whole experience and said how they could go in our Christmas album

Proud owner of a REAL Christmas Tree!!

Now off to load it in the truck (Eric was so happy to have his truck for this occasion)

Stay tuned for pictures of the tree decorated and more festive holiday photos of our annual Christmas Cookie Baking/Christmas Movie Night!!!

I know I’ve been bit of a blogging maniac lately… For those of you who have been bored each time you check this blog and there are no changes, I guess I’m making up for lost time

I realized a few days ago that today, October 4th, marks the day that Eric and I said goodbye to our beloved friends and home in the Minneapolis area of Minnesota,

and moved together with all our earthly possessions to the sunny southern state of North Carolina  (aka: as Eric refers to it: “The Promised Land”).  I remember the day like it was yesterday… frought with so much emotion, both acute sadness and a stirring sense of anticipation of starting our next chapter together in a new state.

The first few hours of the trip I cried and cried to my plant, “Percy” sitting next to me in the passenger seat of my loaded up Honda,

driving behind Eric in our truck, (and later hitching the Honda behind the truck) missing so much all that I was driving away from.

But as the miles past,  I became more and more excited about what lay ahead.

Two days later, we found ourselves settling into the town of Holly Springs with the help of our new church family at GraceWay and Eric’s brother Joe!

Since last October, I think I have experienced more change in 1 single year of my life than I have in all my other 26 years combined.  Seriously.  I was having coffee with a new friend the other day, catching her up on our story since we moved from Minnesota, and I didn’t realize until I started telling our story chronologically, just how MUCH change we’ve experienced in 12 short months.  I’ve decided to be honest and put it all out there for you, my blog readers.  I don’t know how much you’ve heard or been updated on, as it is exhausting to update all the people you love when SO much change occurs.  Just when you’ve updated everyone, it seems like another change happens, and suddenly, everyone is out of the loop again.  So here is my attempt to summarize in bullet point fashion, some of what the Beavers’ past 12 months have looked like:

• Moved from our house in Richfield, MN—to someone else’s house in Holly Springs, NC– to renting an apartment in Garner, NC  (3 total places we’ve lived in 1 year)
• We have rented our house in MN to several tenants, all who have let us down and have had to be evicted because they did not pay rent.  We now have our house on the market for the month of October, and are praying it will sell soon!
• Eric has changed from working full time at The Hyatt Place in MN– to working part time at a christian bookstore and part time as worship pastor at Graceway Church—to working part time as a barista at Hope Cafe and part time as Pastor of creative arts at Hope Cafe Church (3 job changes total for Eric in 12 months)
• I went from working full time at a dental office in MN–to working part time at a dental office in Holly Springs, NC—to working full time at a different dental office in Garner, NC  (3 job changes for Lisa in less than 12 months…. are you keeping up so far?)
• Then, we as a couple went from being a part of an amazing church community in MN, “The Garden Communities”– to a new church plant in Angier, NC, GraceWay Fellowship — to a church re-plant in Raleigh, NC where we are now, Hope Cafe Church.   (transition from GraceWay to Hope Church being a long, long story and a very painful journey, but we are SO thankful for our new church and feel confident that Hope Cafe Church is where we belong.)

So many major life changes… so many lessons learned along the way.  We have struggled, and we have been hurt and disappointed.  We have experienced financial set-backs.  We have had our relationship tested by these things, and by God’s grace have come through these difficult times as an even closer united front in our marriage.   We can only humbly thank God for the gift of bringing us through one step at a time.  I can’t say I would have chosen any of the hard things, but I have seen this to be true of hard times:  it brings us to our knees and closer to God, and that is ALWAYS a good thing.  Even though this past year has been challenging in many ways, I would still declare from a mountain top at the top of my lungs that God is good… all the time, and that I love Him with all my heart.   He has truly been my refuge and strength… my ever-present help in trouble.

I would like to share a passage of scripture that has recently become dear to me.  Deuteronomy 8: 1-18 (ESV)… bold and italics, my own additions for emphasis…

Remember the LORD Your God

¹“The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers. ²And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.³And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. ⁴Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. ⁵Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. ⁶So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. ⁷For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, ⁸a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, ⁹a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. ¹⁰And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.¹¹“Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, ¹² lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, ¹³and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, ¹⁴ then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, ¹⁵who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water,who brought you water out of the flinty rock, ¹⁶who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. ¹⁷Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ ¹⁸You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.

To close this blog, here are some pictures of me and Eric having dinner with our friend Kelly (taking the pictures of us) exactly a year ago this weekend at Macaroni Grill in Cary, NC to celebrate our arrival the evening we arrived at our Holly Springs house after driving for SO many hours.

Here’s us “prosting” (German version of a toast) to our new lives in NC… how could we ever have known then all the changes that awaited us in the coming months.  So here’s to the next year in North Carolina and all the adventures that await the Beavers!!

Our last day of our vacation we spent at this gorgeous beach house that Erin had rented for the week (she also rented a harley, so we didn’t feel too bad that we hadn’t brought the bike for her to ride, haha).  Here are some inside shots of the place to help you get a feel for how luxurious it was.  I had never stayed in an ocean front beach house before, and it was SO much fun.

It was a cloudy rainy day on Monday morning, so some of the shots turned out a bit dark, but you get the picture…

The kitchen window faced the ocean’s waves… it was such a cozy morning… Eric and Erin’s dad, Marty are slowly waking up as the coffee kicks in…

I’m experimenting on up-close shots and adjusting the lens to focus on the closer object and blur out the background.  photography is so much fun.

Here is Erin making her famous crepes!!

And her mom, Joy being silly… I caught her with her curlers in, so she posed to complete the look–haha!

We enjoyed quite a spread for our breakfast of an array of fresh fruits as options to create our own made-to-order crepes. This is probably my favorite picture

Erin and I enjoyed a nice long stroll on the beach in the misty rain catching up.  This was the walkway from the house to the beach:

Eric and Marty had a rivalry pool game going on..

and there were many spirited ping-pong matches… I think Erin and Marty were dubbed the champions if I remember correctly… I did find the trick to beat Erin was to make her laugh so hard to the point of distraction

We had such a relaxing day enjoying quality time with Erin and her mom, dad, and sister Carly.  You can’t beat soaking in a hot tub with a back-drop of the ocean waves and a light ocean mist on your face carried by the wind of the surf… what a way to finish out our weekend of celebrating our 3 year anniversary!

Also, right outside our bedroom was a hammock!

I am so overwhelmed at the generosity of my friend Erin.  She has been such a blessing in our lives since we moved to NC.  Not just because she gave us her motorcycle and let us stay at her rented beach house … it’s more than that.  She is just one of those true friends who is somewhat of a kindred spirit.  I miss her so much since she was deployed to Afghanistan.  Our book club still sends her packages and writes her letters and sends her the books that we are reading so she can still participate.  It’s so cool getting those hand-written letters back from her in the mail knowing that she wrote them in such a far-away place.  Thank you, Erin–and all our other armed forces–who are sacrificing so much, being away from their families and friends and familiarity to serve overseas in our military.

So! That was our trip! Hope you enjoyed going on this blog journey with me and that these images bring a “vacation for the eyes” as they do for me each time I look back at them.   Eric and I are so happy to be able to travel and explore this beautiful world God created.  We feel so grateful that we have been given 3 wonderful years together, and I look forward to many many more  I look forward to growing old with this man and to one day sitting on our front porch, reminiscing back on all our adventures.  I love you, Eric!!