LEGOS...PART TWO!

Alright, so I feel the need to keep going with the Lego adventure we've been on!!!

Tyler has, since the creation of the first planet probe, added to his fleet. He now has 15 planet probes...he calls them rovers. They each have a name, I can't keep them straight...with different details on each one...no two rovers are alike. Anyway, after the first probe was completed, my DIL was over and mentioned to Tyler, "you should write to NASA and tell them about it." She left to go home, and I didn't think anymore about it. Tyler however, stayed in the office. For about another hour. When he emerged, he had three letters in his hands. One to NASA, one to Kennedy Space Center and one to Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He had used the same letter for each, but had changed the salutation to each one. As he handed them to me, I was well, STUNNED. Tyler has Asperberger's syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder, and some wacky sensory issues. He has a one on one aide in school to keep him on task and to help smooth over transitions. This young man, emerged from the home office with a DETAILED paragraph about his creation. There was humor. There was information. There was description. Sure, there were typos, sure some thoughts weren't followed through to completion totally. BUT, the point here, and amazing MIRACLE here, is that he's NEVER before been able to but down on paper two thoughts that flow together. Yet I held in my hands an entire single spaced paragraph!!!! I cried.

Well, I took that letter and wrote a cover letter for it...explaining about Tyler, about his limitations and challenges. About how they were part of a miracle from God. We took pictures of the probe to include with the letter. And then, I mailed it all...to NASA, Kennedy Space Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Here's the last paragraph I wrote in my cover letter...

"If there is any way that you can acknowledge receipt of his letter back to him, that would be so exciting for him! Thank you for your time and for sharing in this MIRACLE with me!"

We heard back from all three places. With posters, pictures of space shuttles, of crews, of planets, and myriads of facts about space, missions there, and these three centers. He loves to receive mail!! And it all meant so much to him...and me and his dad.

What an absolute treasured gift this has all been from God above!!! Just for us! To add to that, at Christmas time, our oldest son and his family flew home...he is in the Air Force. And he had a gift for Tyler. It was a patch that was exactly like the ones the astronauts wore on their sleeves in space aboard the Endeavour. Zach had received it for working on some of the details concerning that shuttle launch!! That was great too!

Then....yes, this IS the never ending miracle from God to my son...

We heard about a LEGO class that was on-line...a class geared specifically to Asperger's children...about LEGO and engineering... TO BE CONTINUED.....PART THREE TOMORROW!!

LEGOS.....

LEGOS.... Tyler discovered them about six months ago. He's had them forever, but his newfound love for space, stars, planets, their names and their sizes...and the space program...prompted him to begin building his very own planet probe. Taking ideas from all the facts his brain holds and adding that to pictures he has seen on the NASA website of the Spirit and the Opportunity (for those of you who don't know, these are rovers actually on Mars at this very moment!!) he created an original probe. From LEGOS. I was stunned when I saw it all those months ago, he had NEVER done anything like that before. And the detail on this thing...well, to give you an idea...there are 11, yes, eleven cameras on this probe that turn 360 degrees ...there are detectors of all sorts, filters for one thing and the other... it's quite amazing. Here's a picture....

There is much more to this story...and tomorrow I'll write about NASA, and the letter we sent. Then the next day, I'll write about the on-line class he is taking and how that came to be!!! God is amazing and I am eager to share it all with you!!

Easter Comes...

I was waiting for spring...and it has arrived...at least on my calendar it has!! I'm waiting on sunshine around my house...but there are daffodils peeking through to cheer me! And now Easter is just around the corner.... EASTER.

Every year as it comes and goes, I wonder why I don't decorate for Easter. I mean, at Christmas I have so much fun...at our house we don't do Santa, but nativity scenes and snowflakes abound. I have a unique taste for Christmas decor...I love old rummage sale Christmas discards. I create with them and just make it plain fun around here! To celebrate the birth of Christ. His birthday on the day this earth has chosen to assign his birth to.

But EASTER should be so much BIGGER!!! LOUDER!!! Jesus (God stuffed into a human body, willingly) came to set us FREE...and HE DID when He submitted to brutal death and then rose from the grave!!! Giving us the Way to eternal life with Him!!!

Seems like that calls for a CELEBRATION!!!! A never-ending WOOOOOO-HOOOOOO....PRAISE SHOUTING, TRUTH DECLARING, P-A-A-R-T-Y!!!!

EASTER...THE DAY TO REMEMBER WHAT GOD IN HIS GREAT LOVE DID FOR US...SO THAT WE MIGHT HAVE THE CHANCE TO CHOOSE CHRIST. TO LIVE FOR ALL ETERNITY IN HEAVEN....DECLARING HIS PRAISE!! SINGING GLORY TO HIS NAME!! HAVING A GIANT WOOOO-HOOOOO PARTY SAYING THANK YOU TO OUR SAVIOR FOREVER!!!

Now that's a reason to celebrate! ENJOY THIS EASTER SEASON... and sing this with me ok?

JESUS LOVES ME THIS I KNOW,
FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO.
LITTLE ONES TO HIM BELONG
THEY ARE WEAK, BUT HE IS STRONG.

YES, JESUS LOVES ME!
YES, JESUS LOVES ME!
YES, JESUS LOVES ME!
THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO.

JESUS LOVES ME! HE WHO DIED
HEAVEN'S GATE TO OPEN WIDE;
HE WILL WASH AWAY MY SIN
LET HIS LITTLE CHILD COME IN.

YES, JESUS LOVES ME!
YES, JESUS LOVES ME!
YES, JESUS LOVES ME!
THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO.

JESUS LOVES ME! HE WILL STAY
CLOSE BESIDE ME ALL THE WAY.
THOU HAS BLED AND DIED FOR ME,
I WILL HENCEFORTH LIVE FOR THEE.

YES, JESUS LOVES ME!
YES, JESUS LOVES ME!
YES, JESUS LOVES ME!
THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO.

A Holy Moment...

Well the worship event I was working on has come and gone. My daughter in law truly has a talent...yes, she can sing and the group she formed, Reclaimed...they are great together. But she truly has a gift...the ability to not care who is around when she wants to worship....SHE falls away and there is her SPIRIT worshipping her Daddy God...and you can see it, feel it...what a gift. I wish to be more like her in that respect. The worship was glorious, pleasing as a fragrance to God and the evening was over far too quickly.

Me? Well I learned much in preparing the atmosphere for worship at that event. That's why God had me doing that, so that I could learn. I explored in prayer what it would be if you could feel, taste, smell, hear and see worship...and that was how it was "decorated" if you will. In the past few weeks as I asked God about worship and what He wanted there, I kept hearing "rustic, simple". And through my journey of listening to Him, it just awes my spirit. Anyways, there were old wood ladders, old wood fruit crates, other assorted crates, small wood step stools, scattered across the front of the stage in various degrees of rest...no straight lines here! There were six inch mirror tiles positioned where He wanted them, and old boards leaning in assorted places and resting in places on the stairs from the stage. Then there were various carved wood frames of all shapes, colors and sizes in each of which was framed a name of God in big black lettering, in the font God put in my head which of course I found on my computer. Over by the large cross on the wall to one side of the stage, is communion with a framed name of God, printed larger than the others and printed in red. I had no idea what He wanted to do with that one...but I KNEW this word was bigger and red. So I did it. Well, it belonged where communion was taken and it is the name ELOHIM. Which means GOD. And the finishing of all this simplicity on the stage was tea lights in sand filled jelly jars sitting all over the mirror tiles, the old wood. Grouped, singly set...candles...to welcome the light. There were assorted wood bowls scattered among the other stuff holding dried flower petals, fragrant. And lastly, there were small wooden crosses about 3 inches tall with a 2 inch crossbar, tied around with jute, a jute hanger threaded through the top. They rested in a bowl beside the communion place for people to take if they wanted.

Long post here, I know. God was glorified. It was a teeny weeny itsy bitsy glimpse of the smallest piece of heaven.... HEAVEN IS GONNA BE....INDESCRIBABLE!