mallorykriegerphotography.com

If you’ve been following my blog, you might have read part of this story.  I’ll finish it soon and explain how this trip to China came about, but for now I’m going to go ahead and post the mini-session info as the time is getting close.

Dates: Friday, May 7th, 9–1:00 & Saturday, May 8th, 8–12:00

Cost: $100.  ALL proceeds go towards this trip.  If you would like to donate money to the orphanage or send gifts to the orphans/nannies, please contact me at: thekriegerfam@att.net

What you get: A studio-style mini-session (10-15 min) and 8 high res files delivered as digital downloads for you to print whenever and wherever.

Location: Providence Church sanctuary

Please contact me asap if you are interested at: thekriegerfam@att.net

HOPE…another word that continued to bounce around in my head throughout this process, a constant reminder that there is so much good to come….

A while back our church began the “Give Your Life Away” campaign in which they encouraged members to find their God-given talents and a passion/cause that stirs them–one that they could fight for– and combine the two to create a specific ministry opportunity almost uniquely tailored for that individual person.  While at small group one Sunday, everyone got the opportunity to share theirs with the group and we wrote them down and had plans to expand on them more later as well as brainstorm to find ways in which all of us could “give our lives away.” Rewind a bit….

Several years ago, when I was in college, I randomly attended a missions event at the Baylor auditorium.  I remember bits and pieces of it.  I remember a video about orphans that had me in tears mid-way through, and I remember them giving statistics on the number of orphans in the world and specific countries, and I remember them saying that there would be a room set up at the back and if you felt God calling you towards overseas missions or were just interested in missions, etc. to go back and talk with the people in that room. I also specifically remember China being the main country they spoke of, and I remember being turned off by that and mentally telling God that I would do anything He asked but overseas missions. Anything.  And especially not China. That night after the conference was over, I was on my way out the door and I literally could not leave.  I could not do it. I walked that long hallway towards the room they had set up for people interested in overseas missions and I turned around and went back to the door to get out of there.  Hand on the handle to leave again and I couldn’t do it! It was ridiculous.  I ended up walking into that room, terrified, curious, frustrated, nervous….and oddly, a little excited–which made me mad b/c I had already said NO.  I stayed for over an hour and was one of the last ones to leave.

Back to the present. : )  So, as far as the “Give Your Life Away” campaign goes….my God-given talents I wrote down as photography/art and my passion–something that I could literally stand and fight for—orphans/adoption. This call to orphans and adoption had been sparked in college, as you now know.  TANGENT…we hope to someday adopt from another country and had been in the process to do that very thing over three years ago when we found out we were pregnant with our first son.  So, obviously we put adoption on hold, but still hope that is in our future.  So the process of praying through this idea of ‘giving my life away’ in a way that put my passion and gifts together started.  And then came the storm of the last couple of months.  And it got put on the back-burner, a little forgotten, but not totally lost.  Until lately.  A couple of weeks ago, I listened to a sermon by Matt Chandler that dealt very specifically with recent life events…as well as his own life events.  He said something that really hit home for me.  He said that (in a summed up version) we all live like we’re going to live to be 80 and see our kids grow up and get married, have kids, be grandparents, retire, travel the world, and die in our sleep…..when in reality, that’s not what is going to happen for us all.  Some of us will die young, some of us will lose a spouse or a child, suffer extreme tragedies, etc.  He said much more and the sermon was awesome and I’ll provide a link to it if I can remember exactly which one it was.  However, that’s what hit me the most.  And I started to realize the truth in that, and the extreme brevity of life, and this feeling of urgency started to come over me that I couldn’t shake.  The urgency of living for the gospel, the urgency to make a difference in the world, our community,  to step out in faith and take a risk.  Life just became so short…..maybe it always was, but for me, it’s just now hitting home. We are ‘a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes..’ James 4:14.  So as I began to process and deal with this fact—that truly, we all will die (not that I didn’t know this–but you know what I mean)…and for some of us it could be soon, and for some of us it could be when we’re 80, 90, 100….I just started to remember what I had been praying about before all of this happened.  How to ‘give my life away’ for the gospel.  And I realized, if life truly is so extremely short, why are we all living like it’s not….why are we avoiding and ignoring the suffering and tragedies that are happening every second of every day for fear of getting too close hence they happen to us? Why are we not standing up and fighting for what we believe in, fighting for the injustices in this world, fighting for the gospel, fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves? Why are we not ‘giving our lives away’ and trying to make a difference in the brief amount of time we have here on this earth? I could probably answer those questions pretty quickly for myself in one word: fear. Fear of a lot of things….fear of the unknown, fear of others, fear of tragedy, fear of what people would think, fear of being uncomfortable, fear of fear, etc.  And since God does not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self control, why do we let fear control us a lot of the time? Good question.

So, I began to pray again for a way to combine my gift with my passion in order to make a difference.  I needed some direction.  What I kept thinking about and telling my husband was that what I would really love to do is go over to China and visit an orphanage first-hand and have the experience and the opportunity to take pictures and bring those back home and share that with our church family as well as others, and in that way, raise some awareness as to what occurs halfway around the world.  However, there was no opportunity for that right now and I don’t see that happening for some time.  Especially considering the fact that we have two young kids and hope to have another in the future.  I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of fear that comes along with that idea anyways.  The first-hand experience would just have to wait several more years.  So I begun to think of ways to raise money for orphans or people in the process of adopting, etc.  I still didn’t have any direction as far as what organization, or if I was to start something up, etc.  A million different directions to go.  That’s when I stumbled upon Show Hope.

Rewind a little bit…in early January, Jason and I were writing out our goals for the year and listing memories of the past year and I shared with him that I felt like the Lord kept giving me this one word, RENEWAL, for this year, 2010. I had no idea what was coming up in the near future, but we were in the process of trying to comprehend the shocking news that another pastor/friend with a young wife and three little kids was recently diagnosed with brain cancer and I had begun following the story of a precious little 5-year old girl battling for her life with the same deadly disease.  Even though we were not directly in contact with, or in the little girl’s case–have never even met her family, I still felt greatly affected by both situations.  Both situations, at the time seemed so unfair, so wrong, why would a God so loving and so powerful allow these things to happen? It just didn’t make sense.  The Lord kept bringing up the word RENEWAL in my mind again and again and I still didn’t get it.  I didn’t get how any of these tragedies had anything to do with the ‘renewal’ of anything.  I pictured my own child in the place of that sweet little girl’s…..battling something so scary and deadly and having to watch while your child suffers…..I can’t think of anything more heart-wrenching and breaking than that.  Watching your own child suffer….my son suffer….like God watched his own Son suffer.  And as I started to put that together, I started to see the truth….and I started to see glimpses of hope that comes through suffering….and glimpses of renewal.  Romans 5:3 says, “…we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts…”  Rejoice in our sufferings? Yeah, not so easy. But we have hope—and that hope will not disappoint us.  Hope. That one word has seemed to reign in the forefront of life–and death– over the past few months.  And the only reason we have hope is because of Jesus.  I can’t imagine going through any of these tragic events without Jesus, without the hope that comes through Him.  I know if you’re reading this what you might be thinking…..yeah, I get it—I’ve been taught this my entire life—I know, it’s just that over the past couple of months this belief has taken on a new meaning.  My eyes have been opened a little bit more… I’m off on a tangent, and nothing has anything to do with a yard sale or China yet ; ) ….it will soon.  I’m not sure if any of this will tie together at all, but somehow in my mind it does.  I just felt the need to write out what I’ve been trying to mentally process over the last couple of months. So, back to HOPE….

Part I

**Warning** this could very well be a lengthy post as I’m known to get a bit wordy and throw in millions of details…at least since you’re reading it you can’t hear how fast I talk : )  Where to start…..I really will try to sum up to some degree.  Here we go…..

Over the past year or so, I’ve been really struggling with where to go with this photography business.  I truly do love taking photographs and I was really struggling with how to balance life as a mom and wife and also juggle a small business.  Anyone that works from home knows that it’s not as easy as it sounds…especially if you own your own business and have no employees….then you become the owner, photographer, editor, graphic designer, website designer, customer service person, tax person, accountant, office manager, etc. etc.  I felt like I was being pulled in a million different directions towards many different roles and I wasn’t doing any of them well….just good enough to stay afloat.  On top of that, I kept questioning the purpose of this business.  Yes, it helps us out financially as we can always use the extra money, especially with having two kids and hoping for more in the future.  However, I could do other things to make some money on the side….things that would be a lot simpler than running my own business and being so stressed out all of the time.  So then I really started to look deeper into the purpose for this business.  Was it for my own glory? Am I trying to make something of myself? I don’t know.  I see myself trying to get better and better, but for what purpose? What would I do if I was the best of the best? Then what? I don’t know.  How am I glorifying the Lord through this and making much of God, not myself? I don’t know.  I felt the Lord asking me to quit.  To lay everything down at His feet and literally quit, no strings attached.  Walk away, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and trust Him.  I will say that I did not obey.  Not for a while at least.  I was too scared to do it…..scared financially, scared of loosing control, scared of “loosing,” scared of being a “quitter,” and scared of not knowing who I was without this business. (I know, that’s awful)   When life finally got to a point where I could hardly stand under the pressure, and I felt the Lord VERY strongly impressing upon me the need to lay this business aside, I did it.  I called my husband and told him the Lord wanted me to take a break for a while–indefinitely,  and he trusted me even though he wasn’t sure himself.  The next day our beloved pastor and friend was admitted to the hospital in critical condition and his wife, and very precious friend of mine, asked us to watch their two kids while she stayed at the hospital to be with her husband as he (and she) fought for his life.  Two days later he went to be with Jesus.  I cannot tell you how thankful I am that the Lord pushed me that hard to step away from photography when I did.  The reasons are endless… and much will make sense as this story unfolds.  However, after those three days, our lives were flipped upside down.  Life–and death started to take on a new meaning….a new reality.  Through this man, the Lord had changed our lives and our marriage, and the way we viewed God…..and through his death the Lord has transformed us all the more, and has opened our eyes to the shortness of life and the urgency with which we are to live.  This passage from a short book I am reading really hit home:

“God is moving in His people, reawakening us to put our faith into action and show the hope that we have to a broken and hurting world.  He is calling us to an authentic faith that looks a lot more like the life of Jesus than how many of us have been living.  God wants us to play an active role in making known His power, His  love, and His goodness to the world.  He specifically calls His people to go out and care for orphans and fatherless children in their distress.  There is a lot of pain and despair in this world, but there is hope.”         **this is Part I of what looks like is turning out to be a novel ; )**

Fun with a box of mac-n-cheese.  Seriously, why do we ever buy toys? What’s funny is that he won’t even eat macaroni and cheese. He just wants to play with boxes of it and would really like to dump it out so he could dig it up with his loader.

For some reason, this is one of my most favorite pictures.  I think because this is just TOTALLY Malakai.  He could stand there and dig in that dirt for hours! He was all sweaty and dirty (can’t tell from the pic) and smelled just like a total boy!! I love how he sticks out his stomach too…cracks me up!

Couple random pics from Easter Sunday.  My dad took these!! Good job Dad!!

Visit to Abilene in May…

More to come from this trip…

Aren’t they so cute?! The pics aren’t totally ready, so here’s a little teaser for now…

BOY!! Whoooohoooooo!!!!! Yes, definitely a boy.  We did the early sono at 13 1/2 weeks and found out that Kai will be getting a baby brother.  We are super excited and a little relieved that we won’t have to buy a whole bunch of girl stuff.  I feel totally prepared for another boy.  We seriously thought for sure it was a girl though b/c this pregnancy has been a lot different…..but my motherly instinct on this one was completely wrong!!! : )

Things are finally seeming to settle down again after the holidays.  Man, I felt like I was in a whirlwind there for a while.  It is seriously not fun to be sick and pregnant while having a toddler to take care of and a business to run.  Thankfully, I am feeling MUCH better and having much more energy now.  I am 15 weeks along, so into my second trimester, which is a good thing for sure!  I have a ton of pictures to post of Christmas and our little tractor-obsessed 19-month old.  I seriously don’t think there is a child in the world that is more obsessed with tractors than my son is.  We keep thinking it will eventually go away, but his obsession continues to grow and grow.  He doesn’t watch normal kid cartoons….nope….he watches tractor videos on YouTube and the promo video for the “All new 9030 series John Deere Tractor” on the John Deere website.  We have 2 tractor videos for like 12 year olds, tractor socks, shirts, signs for the wall, lunch boxes, hundreds of tractor toys, a tractor blanket….the list goes on and on.  I promise you, this child says the word “tractor” 500 times a day.  One day I’m going to count how many times in one day he says it and I”m putting it in his baby book.  He knows the difference between bulldozers, diggers, scrapers, excavators, concrete mixers, car transporters, mini loaders, tractors, brush rigs, and more….seriously scary that so do I!

OK, so enough about tractors…..I’m going to post all those pics later, but for now, Kelly and Jonathan’s engagement pics are coming up!

OK, so this is our Christmas card this year! I decided to save on postage…..haha.  No, seriously, it seems like this Christmas season has been crazier than ever.  I guess the combination of an unexpected (but very exciting) pregnancy and all of the exhaustion and sickness that comes with that….added to a sick child, and a photography business, and just the sheer business of this time of year, doesn’t really leave much time for me to create, order, address, and mail out Christmas cards to all of my friends and family.  Sorry.  I doubt anyone will be too very dissappointed.  : )

I had a good friend of mine, April Williams, take some family photos for us the other day, somewhat spur-of-the-moment.  She did a really great job too, despite the fact that all my child wanted to do was run the opposite direction of us and had no interest at all in sitting down or being held.  We had to bribe him with one of his toy tractors.  Anyways, I was just happy that we got some pictures with the three of us in them….it seems like that never happens….maybe because I’m always behind the camera and never in them.  : )  Anyways, just pretend like these are printed on some really nice photographic paper and they have been delivered to your house in a really pretty green….no, red envelope with your name printed beautifully on the front and a warm message is printed on the card about the blessing of Christmas and the joy of celebrating the birth of our Savior.  You can just picture it, can’t you?  Hope you all have a very merry and blessed Christmas!

OK, so I went to the doctor last Friday and had my first sono…or ultrasound, not sure what the difference is….anyways, I found out I was only 5 weeks and 5 days along, which was depressing b/c I was thinking I was around 7 based on how long I had been sick for.  With Malakai, I started getting sick around 6 weeks….this time, I had already been feeling awful for about a week and a half when I went to the doctor.  Makes me wonder if this time it’s a girl considering how many times I’ve heard that you’re sicker with girls, and sicker for longer with girls…..50-50 chance, and we’re good either way, so who knows! Here’s a funny story though, that happened today…..I had Malakai sitting on my lap and here was our conversation:

“Malakai, are you going to have a baby brother?” His response: “Nooo.” (shaking his head)  I said, “OK, are you going to have a baby sister?” His response: “Ya.”  I thought it was so funny I asked him again and got the exact same response! He doesn’t even know what a brother or sister is! Too cute.  Maybe he’s going to have the spiritual gift of prophesy….you know, his name does mean “Messenger of the Lord” hmmmmmm……..

So, my due date is July 11th and I attached a scan of my first sonogram….which didn’t scan all that good, so I put an arrow pointing to the baby….actually, just a tiny fraction of the baby, in case you couldn’t see it : )

That’s right! Malakai’s going to be a big brother!!!!!  Look how excited he is!! : )